Since our school years we have been bombarded by an infinity of data that we accept without saying a word. For example, we have always been told that Guernica, a masterpiece of Cubism, illustrates the horror experienced during the bombing of the Basque town of the same name on 26 April 1937 in the context of the Spanish Civil War. Most experts claim that it is an anti-war work, but a few deny this interpretation.
This is the case of the professor of Geography and History José María Juarranz, who in a study that has taken him 14 years has concluded that the work of Pablo Picasso is a family self-portrait (something that, curiously, Daniel-Henry Kanhweiler, merchant and biographer of the artist, already stated) in which all the figures would allegorically represent people close to the artist. According to Juarranz, the war was indifferent to the father of Cubism and he simply linked his work with the bombing for mere opportunism. During a meeting in his studio in Paris with several friends, where he lived in 1937, one of them exclaimed “Guernica!” when he saw the painting, and from there the idea would have come to him… Even, according to Juarranz, Picasso began the planning of the work before that nefarious event. “I paint how others write their autobiography”, assured the artist…
