Guernica: I’m not well educated in visual art, whether sculpture, canvas or any other medium for that matter. I can say one thing though. My then soon-to-be wife and I went to Spain in 1996. I’ve read a lot about the Spanish Civil War, mostly Ernest Hemingway’s stuff, so I knew of Guernica and the tragedy that took place there in 1937 during the war. And I had seen Picasso’s interpretation of it in many pictures, but let me tell you something. When you’ve been awake for 27 hours and you go directly from Aeropuerto Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas to your hotel and then to The Sofia to see this insane painting known only as Guernica, it, well, it just blew me away. It’s so overwhelming and powerful, I can say it’s the most profound piece of visual art I’ve ever seen. And I’ve been to the snobby Parisian’s Louvre and seen the wonder that is the Mona Lisa. But this was something completely different.
We were the only people in the hall besides a security guard. I crouched down on the floor and just sat there, taking it all in. The guard looked at me like I was bonkers, just sitting there in the middle of the floor and reeling. It’s black-gray-white, no color other than that. It stretched for what seemed like a mile to the right and to the left, but I hadn’t slept in a long while. It’s really just 25 feet wide and about 6 feet tall. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is how it moves you. You see the blood, the pain, the sorrow, the helplessness, the cruelty. Go see it. Feel it. Understand how horrible war is.
Brady's Cellar 