Descripción
The painting belongs to the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dusseldorf. The motif of this poster has been reproduced twice more.
The image on these posters reflects the aggressive situation that Picasso experienced in Paris. War, sadness, sacrifice – all this and more is expressed in this oil painting. Picasso, like all artists, was a prophet and a careful observer of his time and environment. Ortega y Gasset says that “works of art do not come out of thin air; human life is drama. From which it follows that one cannot methodically plan a story if one does not reveal the dramatic plot within it, which is what gives it its living and organic tension.”
The role that artistic activity could play did not escape the control of the Gethsapo, who used to continually make surprise visits to Picasso’s studio in order to monitor his production.
Picasso’s presence in Paris was very significant. On the moral level, it represented an open challenge to everything that Nazism stood for, since he was a Spanish Republican, creator of Guernica and master of what the Germans officially called “decadent painting.” For six years, this situation of confrontation forced him to give up his traditional stays on the Riviera, to avoid public places, to bear the pressure of an enemy power that meant shortages of food, heating, work materials and, in general, to have to endure hardships to survive without surrendering. The compensation for the humiliations and as a reward for this brave and selfless attitude recognized by friends and strangers alike, was that on August 25, 1944, when the liberation of Paris was proclaimed, hundreds of people came to find him to parade triumphantly as “a symbol of victory over oppression, of the survival and glory of old Europe.”
