Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio Pablo Picasso?

Here's an art history lesson from professor Dillon, PhD in European museum visiting.

In 1937, the Spanish Republican government (not the fascists) commissioned Pablo Picasso to do a painting for the Spanish Pavilion at the World's Fair in Paris. He painted this:

which depicts the Spanish town of Guernica after Franco asked Nazi Germany to bomb it - a request that resulted in the killing and maiming of thousands of innocent Spaniards. The bombing took place on April 26, and this painting hung in Paris in July of the same year.

After Franco won the Spanish Civil War, Picasso let the painting hang in the Museum of Modern Art in New York with two stipulations: It would only be lent to them until the Spanish people had a democracy again, and at that time it would return to Madrid and hang in the Prado along with the other great Spanish artists' work.

Franco died in 1975, and MOMA gave up the piece in 1981 (Picasso died in 73) and it was hung in the Prado as promised (though MOMA was reluctant to get rid of such a high profile painting).

In 1992 it was moved to el Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, a new museum that would focus on Spanish modern art located just down the street from the one Picasso specified.

The display is amazing, and includes photos of the work in progress and the small sample canvases the artist painted while thinking about what the final version would be. I was glad to see that unlike many other famous paintings, this one is not behind glass, which may be because there exists no piece of glass large enough to cover the whole thing. From the right side, where one of the two guards sits, I could take 12 full steps until I reached the left side by the other guard (Wikipedia will tell you it's 23 feet wide) and if I jumped I wouldn't come close to touching the top, which Wikipedia says is 11 feet away from the ground.

There is a rope placed to keep you about three steps away from the painting which I was happy to do since, as I leaned over the rope a little (it's only about a foot off the ground) I heard the buzzing of an alarm. I pointed at myself, looked at one of the guards flanking it and he just nodded as I smiled and backed away.

I was also glad to see the painting in a room free from the usual hoards clamoring to get a glimpse of famous art. For whatever reason, it wasn't crowded during my visit and I was able to stand at the back wall and see the entire thing unobstructed as well as get (almost a little too) close to see it completely.

See, this painting is a political protest. These days, it seems like artists are content to rub feces on themselves to protest the war or sit in a tree for a year because of CO2 output. Why has no one made Guernica again? There are so many Guernicas to be created.