In the context of Guernica (Picasso), analyze the 1937 Paris International Exhibition of the Exhibition.
Guernica was unveiled and initially exhibited in July 1937 at the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris International Exposition, where Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union had huge pavilions. The Pavilion, which was financed by the Spanish Republican government at the time of civil war, was built to exhibit the Spanish government's struggle for existence contrary to the Exposition's technology theme. The Pavilion's entrance presented an enormous photographic mural of Republican soldiers accompanied by the slogan:We are fighting for the essential unity of Spain.
We are fighting for the integrity of Spanish soil.
We are fighting for the independence of our country and for the right of the Spanish people to determine their own destiny.The display of Guernica was accompanied by a poem by Paul Éluard, and the pavilion displayed The Reaper by Joan Miró and Mercury Fountain by Alexander Calder, both of whom were sympathetic to the Republican cause.At Guernica's Paris Exhibition unveiling it garnered little attention. The public's reaction to the painting was mixed. Max Aub, one of the officials in charge of the Spanish pavilion, was compelled to defend the work against a group of Spanish officials who objected to the mural's modernist style and sought to replace it with a more traditional painting that was also commissioned for the exhibition, Madrid 1937 (Black Aeroplanes) by Horacio Ferrer de Morgado. Some Marxist groups criticized Picasso's painting as lacking in political commitment, and faulted it for not offering a vision of a better future. In contrast, Morgado's painting was a great success with Spanish Communists and with the public. The art critic Clement Greenberg was also critical of Guernica, and in a later essay he termed the painting "jerky" and "too compressed for its size", and compared it unfavorably to the "magnificently lyrical" The Charnel House (1944–1948), a later antiwar painting by Picasso.Among the painting's admirers were art critic Jean Cassou and poet José Bergamín, both of whom praised the painting as quintessentially Spanish. Michel Leiris perceived in Guernica a foreshadowing: "On a black and white canvas that depicts ancient tragedy ... Picasso also writes our letter of doom: all that we love is going to be lost..." Jean Cocteau also praised the painting and declared it a cross that "[General] Franco would always carry on his shoulder."
Jean Cassou Clement Greenberg Joan Miró Spain right Nazi Germany Paris International Exposition The Charnel House Max Aub José Bergamín Madrid Michel Leiris Guernica Franco mural Paris Jean Cocteau Alexander Calder The Reaper Mercury Fountain Spanish Republican Picasso Paul Éluard