Pablo Picasso Research Paper

Apart from Fanon and Pontecorvo, many other influential artists and authors spoke out with regards to the events in Northern Africa. Their works demonstrated the attitudes and reactions of many Europeans who witnessed the war from a distance.

On April 26, 1937, the city of Guernica was decimated by German bombers during the Spanish Civil War. This tragic assault caused an uproar among many Europeans, most famously by Pablo Picasso. He used his artistic platform to memorialize the deaths of hundreds of men, women and children, all while creating a political message. He conveyed that such actions will not be tolerated, thus creating one of the most influential anti-war paintings in history. This piece influenced many artists to come, one of

The town was thought to have been harbouring members of the FLN and other revolutionaries, therefore seen as a threat to the French army. However, the attack resulted in the deaths of almost 100 civilians, most of whom were women and children. The outrage of such an attack repeating induced André Fougeron to immortalize it in his painting “Massacre à Sakiet III”, which was also an homage to Picasso’s earlier work. While it did not gain the same level of international fame as “Guernica”, it expressed the impact and importance of anti-war paintings with regards to the collective memory of a people, and inspired other artists, such as Peter de Francia. These artists all used their art to not only invoke an emotional response, but also to convey a political message. The extreme violence used against civilians provoked Europeans to speak out against colonial violence and colonialism as a whole. Their deaths were used as political weapons against the French colonists, thus gaining sympathy for the Algerian cause by left-wing thinkers and intellects. Due to this, acts of counter-revolution seem more justifiable, forcing violence to become a main driving

“Fratricidal War: The Conflict between the Mouvement National Algérien (MNA) and the Front De Libération Nationale (FLN) in France during the Algerian War (1954-1962).” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 39 (2012): 227-240. http://resolver.scholarsportal.info/resolve/13530194/v39i0002/227_fwtcbtifdtaw

Barr, Alfred H. Jr. Guernica: Pablo Picasso. New York: Arno Press, 1969.

Camus, Albert. Algerian Chronicles. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2013.

Fanon, Franz. Studies in a Dying Colonialism. Translated by Haakon Chevalier. London: Earthscan Publications Ltd., 1965.

Harrison, Alexander. Challenging De Gaulle, The OAS and the Counterrevolution in Algeria 1954-1962. New York: Praeger,