Art of war, uncovered by Pete Hamill, New York Daily News 03-20-2003 Most of the TV cameras are gone now from the entrance to the Security Council. They no longer record the arrivals and departures of diplomats and statesmen who pause at microphones to speak of the formulas for peace or war. Now the cameras will be aimed at generals in distant places and ferocious explosions and reporters on rooftops. At the United Nations now, visitors can see the tapestry that was covered with a blue drape during recent press conferences on Iraq. The tapestry was a gift of the heirs of former New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller in 1985, as a reminder of the horrors of war. It was based on one of the most powerful paintings of the 20th century. The painting was "Guernica." The painter was Pablo Picasso. The original painting was inspired by the aerial bombardment of a small Spanish town on April 26, 1937, in the second year of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). Guernica was a market town in the Basque country, east of Bilbao. The population was about 7,000. The Spanish war is now almost forgotten, but like all civil conflicts (including our own) it was filled with horrors. Both sides, convinced of their own virtue, committed atrocities. All over the world, including New York, millions chose sides. But the outcome of the war was never certain. When the right-wing forces of Gen. Francisco Franco rose in armed revolt against the elected Popular Front government of the Spanish Republic, the country's small air force refused to join them. Franco then turned for help to Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy and, in turn, the Republic accepted help from Stalin's Soviet Union (the United States insisted on neutrality). From his home in Paris, Picasso pledged his loyalty to the Republic, and accepted the honorary directorship of Madrid's Prado museum (although he stayed securely in Paris). In truth, he did very little to help his fellow Spaniards. Then, around 4:40 in the afternoon of April 26, a wave of Heinkel 111 and Junker 52 airplanes from the Nazi Condor Legion appeared over Guernica. There were no anti-aircraft guns, no protective airplanes. For the Nazis, this was target practice. They attacked for three hours, their heavy explosives ripping into markets and people. They dropped more than a thousand incendiary bombs. They machine-gunned citizens fleeing the carnage. When it was over, there were 1,654 dead and 883 wounded. The town was basically destroyed. This attack on a town with no military importance set off waves of outrage around the world. Two days after the event, the news of the destruction of Guernica reached Paris in the morning newspapers. At that time, Picasso had committed to make a large painting for the Spanish Pavilion of the 1937 International Exhibition in Paris, to be held later in the summer, but had done no work on the project. The news from Guernica shocked him into action. He began to work that day, making rough drawings. In his studio on the Rue des Grands-Augustins, he set up an immense canvas - 11 feet, 6 inches high by 25 feet, 8 inches. The process of the painting was recorded by his mistress Dora Maar in a series of splendid photographs, and through them we can follow the evolution of Picasso's work over three months of furious work. From the beginning, he had decided that color had no place in his design. "Guernica" is painted in stark black, white and gray (the UN tapestry chooses browns that soften the effect). The photographs of Guernica were in black and white; so were the great etchings of his hero, Francisco Goya, whose "Disasters of War" he had studied with such passion. "Guernica" is about the horror of those who are on the ground, trapped in a house or a small plaza. Picasso ignores the particular and concentrates on the universal. To the left, a woman howls at the sky, a dead child in her arms. Behind her is a bull, stolid, its face ridged with anger or annoyance, probably a symbol of implacable Spain herself, while above the bull we see a shrieking bird. On the ground before them lies the severed head of a man, wide-eyed in death, a claw-like hand frozen in futility, while off to his right, in the center of the painting, there's an arm, possibly his, with a broken sword in its hand and a sprouting flower. Rising in the center of the mural - and dominating it in the memory of most viewers - is a horse in agony. Its right foreleg is bent, the right hind leg tangled with the man's severed head. The left foreleg paws for traction. The horse's body has been gashed by a sword and pierced by a spear. But it's the head, bent backward, that expresses the horror: the mouth open, teeth bared, tongue frozen in pain, nostrils flared. We can almost hear the creature's terrified whinnying. To the right are three women. The right arm of one of them hangs uselessly, while she reaches with her left hand for the pus-filled sack of her ruined left knee. Above this woman, another howls at the sky, engulfed in flames, a window above her as white as burning phosphorous while more stylized flames scorch the sky. From another window, the head of the third woman enters like a specter, holding an oil lamp that illuminates only human suffering. The effect was powerful, scary and universal. But he had created something that would endure, a warning of what was coming, an assault on all sentimental notions about war. Up ahead lay more wars in the many ruined cities of the world, millions of dead women and children, slain horses, broken swords. In the years since Picasso painted "Guernica," there has been no end to the slaughter of innocents. On the centenary of Picasso's birth (1981), when democracy seemed secure at last, the original of "Guernica" finally went to Spain, where it now hangs in the Reina Sofia in Madrid, the Spanish museum of modern art. But I remember when I was young, coming each month to the Museum of Modern Art, where "Guernica" had lived its long exile, and staring at what Picasso had made. I looked at it during the Korean War, when young soldiers were dying. I looked at it during Vietnam. It always whispered the same thing: These too will die in war. That truth can't be hidden behind any mere drape. Originally published on March 20, 2003