Untitled

Press, 17 August 1977, Page 17

Early in the 19305, as conflict and insurrection beset Spain, Picasso became increasingly preoccupied with violence. In a series of etchings he explored the theme of Minotaur — a savage mythological beast, half-man and half-bull. The series was climaxed by “Minotauromachy.” In it, a fearless little girl confronts the beast, who wears a menacing bison's head. Directly in the Minotaur’s path, a defenceless woman matador, with her breasts exposed, slumps across a disembowelled horse. The action, it is said, is “arrested in the electrifying second before the beast tramples the fallen matador and gores the little girl.” The painting is seen as the greatest

anti-war statement in art. “Guernica” followed. as Picasso's reaction to the brutal bombing of the Basque village of that name. It is cast in darkness, as if in mourning: the palette is restricted to “severe blacks, dead whites, and deep greys.” Near the centre of the huge, 12ft high, 26ft wide, painting, is a dying horse — “a vision of futile protest” — shrieking in pain. To the left, a dead soldier clutches a shattered sword; nearby, a mother grieves over her dead baby; to the right, a terror-struck head floats between two frantic figures. Above them all is the bull — a symbol, Picasso said, of “brutality and darkness.”