Cramer relates the genesis of the suite of 18 etched scenes, and how the bombing of Guernica on April 26, 1937, changed Picasso’s attitude, caricature becoming full accusation of the tyrant.
The suffering of the victims echoing in his poem, that begins:’ ’fandango of shivering owls souse of swords of evil-omened polyps scouring brush of hairs from priests’ tonsures standing naked in the middle of the frying-pan – placed upon the ice cream cone of codfish fried in the scabs of his lead-ox heart – his mouth full of the chinch-bug jelly of his words.” And ends: “Cries of children cries of women cries of birds cries of flowers cries of timbers and of stones cries of bricks cries of furniture of beds of chairs of curtains of pots of cats and of papers cries of odors which claw at one another cries of smoke pricking the shoulder of the cries which stew in the cauldron and of the rain of birds which inundates the sea which gnaws the bone and breaks its teeth biting the cotton wool which the sun mops up from the plate which the purse and the pocket hide in the print which the foot leaves in the rock.”
The proceeds from the sale of the etchings went to a fund aiding the Spanish Republicans. History creates the artists it needs. It does not here seem excessive to quote Hegel, speaking of “world-historical individuals”: “They are great men, because they willed and accomplished something great; not a mere fancy, a mere intention, but that which met the case and fell in with the needs of the age.” (Philosophy of History)