Author Note:

I can't say I actually enjoy looking at this painting, but I admire its raw power as an anti-war personal statement by Picasso.

Some history background, modified from the Internet:

Arguably Picasso's best-known painting, 'Guernica', is an antiwar depiction of the 1937 bombing of Guernica, a Basque country town, during the Spanish Civil War by German and Italian aircraft allied with Fascist leader Francisco Franco. The leftist government that opposed Franco commissioned Picasso to create this painting for the Spanish Pavilion at the 1937 World's Fair in Paris. When the fair closed, 'Guernica' went on an international tour. Picasso loaned the painting to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, with the stipulation that it be returned to his native Spain once democracy was restored. Franco died in 1975 (Picasso himself died in 1973), and Spain transitioned to democracy in 1981. The painting is now displayed at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid (Spain's national museum of 20th-century art).

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