이번에 쓰나미 피해를 많이 받은 일본 미야기縣의 센다이는 인구가 약100만 명. 한때 일본에서 가장 살기 좋은 도시로 뽑힌 적이 있다. 센다이 근교에 마쓰시마(松島)라는 일본 3대 절경의 하나가 있다. 수백 개의 섬이 모여 있다.

센다이의 시립박물관에 가면 한 방이 온통 국보들로 꽉 차 있다. 하세쿠라 츠네나카(支倉常長)라는 일본 무사가 1613년부터 7년간 유럽을 왕복하면서 갖고 온 유물 47점이 7년 전에 국보로 지정되었다. 하세쿠라는 일본에서 포교중이던 스페인 신부 소테로와 함께 범선을 타고 태평양을 건너 지금의 미국 서해안에 기착한 뒤 다시 멕시코로 항해하여 아카풀코에 도착했다. 4개월이 걸린 대항해였다.

이들은 멕시코에서 배를 갈아타고 대서양을 횡단, 스페인에 도착했다. 일행은 멕시코를 떠난 지 여덟 달만에 마드리드에 나타나 펠리페 3세를 알현했다. 하세쿠라는 스페인에서 세례를 받은 뒤 로마로 간다. 1615년10월 하세쿠라는 로마의 성베드로 사원 광장으로 들어갔다. 축포가 터지는 가운데 기병이 안내하고 이 일본 사무라이는 말을 타고 들어갔다. 법왕청은 그를 잘 대우했다. 하세쿠라는 임진왜란 때 참전하여 항해술을 인정받았고 반란군 토벌 때는 외교술을 평가받아 센다이의 영주 다테 마사무네(伊達政宗)에 의해 사절로 발탁된 것이었다.

그해 11월 하세쿠라는 교황 바오로 5세를 알현했다. 그는 바오로 5세가 스페인에 부탁하여 멕시코와 센다이가 통상을 할 수 있도록 주선해줄 것을 요청했다. 하세쿠라가 교황에게 제출한 서신에는 '奧州(지금의 동북지방)의 왕 伊達政宗'이란 표현이 있다. 당시 다테 마사무네는 막부의 장군 도쿠가와 이에야스에게 신하로서 복종하고 있을 때였으므로 王운운은 터무니 없는 과장이다. 교황측에서 다테 마사무네는 일국을 대표할 외교권이 없는 것이 아니냐고 따졌다. 하세쿠라를 수행했던 스페인 선교사 소테로는 이렇게 말했다고 한다.

"마사무네公이 다음의 막부 장군이 될 실력자입니다. 지금 일본에서 박해를 받고 있는 30만 천주교도의 도움을 받아 왕위에 오를 것입니다"
이런 무엄한 말이 막부의 도쿠가와 이에야스에게 몰래 전해졌지만 도쿠가와는 모른 척해버렸다고 한다. 마사무네는 배를 만들 때부터 막부의 허가를 얻었고 막부의 선박담당자를 항해사로 초빙했기 때문에 반역의 의사기 있다는 오해를 받지는 않았다. 교황청과 하세쿠라의 교섭은 성공적이지 못했다. 일본에서도 1620년부터 막부에 의한 천주교 박해가 시작되었다.

센다이 시립박물관에는 하세쿠라가 가져온 성경, 십자가, 그림들이 있다. 하세쿠라가 십자가상의 그리스도를 향하여 기도하는 초상화, 그에게 주어진 로마시민증서(羊皮紙에 금박글자가 쓰여 있다) 등은 國寶이다. 하세쿠라는 돌아오는 데 3년이 걸렸다. 그는 1617년 스페인의 세빌리아에서 귀국 길에 올랐다. 대서양을 건너 멕시코에, 멕시코에서 태평양을 건너 마닐라에, 마닐라에서 센다이로 온 것이다. 마젤란이 세계일주를 한 지 약100년 뒤의 일이었다.

하세쿠라는 귀국한 2년 뒤 52세에 죽었다. 그의 아들은 천주교를 믿다가 발각되어 처형되었고 그가 가져온 물건들은 압수되어 명치유신 이후까지 공개되지 않았다. 하세쿠라를 수행했던 소테로 신부도 순교했다.

센다이를 큰 도시로 발전시킨 藩主(번주. 막부시대의 영주) 다테 마사무네의 숨결과 발자취는 이 도시 곳곳에서 살아 있다. 일본은 서구식 봉건제도를 거친 나라이다. 봉건제도란 영주가 번(藩)이란 영지를 거의 독립국가처럼 통치하고 다만 중앙정부인 幕府의 조정과 견제를 받던 제도이다. 이 제도하에서 영주들은 藩의 경제발전에 경쟁적으로 힘을 쏟았고 이 때문에 도쿠가와 막부 약250년간 일본은 평화속의 번영을 이룩할 수 있었다. 이 시기에 축적되고 단련된 지식, 國富, 제도, 민족성이 명치유신의 물적인 토대가 되었다.

일본의 지방에 가보면 그 지방을 번성케 했던 옛 영주(藩主=大名)를 기리는 기념관이 많다. 중앙집권적인 조선조下에서는 지방관리들의 독자성이 허용되지 않아 기억할 만한 인물들도 별로 남아 있지 않는 것과 대조적이다.
센다이에서는 '다테 오도코'라는 말을 쓴다. 다테 마사무네처럼 멋진 남자란 뜻이다. 그런데 다테 마사무네는 어릴 때 천연두로 오른쪽 눈이 실명된 애꾸였다. 그의 별명은 獨眼龍이었다. 다테 마사무네는 오다 노부나가, 도요토미 히데요시, 도쿠가와 이에야스의 3雄이 천하를 놓고 대결하던 시절에 태어났다.

그는 젊었을 때는 일본의 동북지방을 근거로 삼아 천하의 패권을 노려볼 만한 인물로 꼽히기도 했으나 결국은 도요토미 히데요시에게 복속한다.
1590년의 일이었다. 그 전해 마사무네는 지방 영주와 전투를 벌여 아이츠 지방을 손에 넣었다. 당시 이미 패권을 쥐고 있던 도요토미 히데요시는 영주들에게 전투금지령을 내려놓았었다. 이 명령을 어긴 마사무네에 대하여 히데요시는 지금의 도쿄 근교인 오다와라(小田原)까지 와서 해명하도록 명령했다. 마사무네는 잘못했다가는 목이 달아날 위기에 처하게 되었다. 上京 명령을 거부하고 싸울 것인가, 천하쟁투를 포기하고 복속할 것인가. 마사무네는 후자를 택했다.
오다와라에서 10만 대군을 이끌고 攻城戰을 벌이고 있던 53세의 히데요시는 무릎을 꿇고 절을 하는 23세의 청년장군 마사무네의 목등을 막대기로 툭툭 치면서 "조금만 늦었더라면 여기가 위험했어"라고 말했다고 한다.

그 3년 뒤인 1593년4월 히데요시의 명을 받은 마사무네는 1300명의 부하병사들을 이끌고 대마도를 거쳐 부산항에 상륙한다. 그 1년 전 임진왜란이 시작되어 약14만 명의 일본군이 한반도 남부에서 작전중이었다. 마사무네는 후방군수지원을 담당했다. 그는 제2차 진주성 전투에 참전했다. 1차 진주성 싸움(1592년10월)에서 참패했던 일본군은 1593년6월 제2차 진주성 싸움을 벌인다. "한 명도 살려보내지 말라"는 히데요시의 특명을 받은 일본군은 약9만 병력을 집결시킨다. 그 7년 뒤 전국시대의 막을 내리고 도쿠가와 시대를 연 대결전 세키가하라 전투 때 東西 양군은 각각 9만을 동원했으니 진주성 공략에 히데요시가 얼마나 집착했는지 잘 알 수 있다.

2차 진주성 싸움에서 이긴 일본군은 진주성 안에 있던 5만의 조선인들을 학살했다. 다테 마사무네가 남긴 기록에 따르면 "소, 말, 닭, 개까지 남기지 않고 죽였다"고 한다
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Massacre in Korea – Picasso (Part 1: Introduction)
January 15, 2011
tags: communism, korea, Massacre in Korea, Picasso, thesisby PhilOkay, so. Picasso.

Picasso is one of the world’s best loved artists and his work has commanded some of the highest prices ever paid at auction. He was also hugely prolific, leaving behind tens of thousands of works after his death.

I first took note of Picasso when I was around 7 years old but my interest was in his incredibly long name rather than his artistic output. Over the next decade and a half I became better acquainted with his works but grew no fonder or more interested in the man. It was only while flicking through a catalogue of various paintings that I found the piece which triggered months of research, countless trips to the library and lots of head/desk interaction and culminated in my undergraduate thesis. That work was Picasso’s Massacre in Korea (1951).


Massacre in Korea (1951) Pablo Picasso

What was so great about Massacre in Korea? Absolutely nothing. That was the fascinating thing – it was unmistakeably a Picasso and clearly worth a (not so small) fortune but – to put it bluntly – it was horrible. Lifeless, un-engaging, static, tedious, hilarious. I was compelled to find out exactly how Picasso had gone so badly wrong.

This is clearly going to be way too long for a single blog post so I’ll spread it across a few. The remainder of this one will run through the necessary – but also fascinating – back story.


Korea

Prior to 1945, Korea was a united country although under Japanese occupation. With the surrender of Japan at the end of World War II American and Soviet forces agreed a temporary occupation of the country with the Soviet Union taking control of the area to the north of the 38th parallel and US forces controlling the land to the south. After a five year trusteeship it was expected that the country would become fully independent and be ruled by a Korean government – all this despite opposition by Koreans themselves.

Unsurprisingly, the Soviets and Americans favoured different candidates and – after the complete breakdown of reunification negotiations in 1948 – the peninsula ended up permanently divided in two. From this point onward Stalin maintained awareness of North Korea’s political and military manoeuvring and intention but refused direct involvement to avoid conflict with the UN and US. The Korean War (25 June, 1950 – 27 July, 1953) ignited after the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea (North Korea) attempted to reunify the Korean Peninsula by force.

The Soviet media was openly supportive of North Korea’s position as a fellow communist regime, although the North Koreans were viewed as the aggressors by non-communists. US aid to the South and the resultant advance of South Korean and American troops back across the 38th parallel was decried by the Soviet press with reports of innocent civilians being massacred.

Communism and the arts

Since the late 1920s Stalin had effectively become the dictator of the Soviet Union having outmanoeuvred his political rivals. Under Stalin’s rule the Soviet Union was repressive and totalitarian. Nearly all aspects of society were subject to close scrutiny and Party involvement with the arts was no exception. The usefulness of intellectuals (a category which included artists) was measured according to their ability to glorify, inspire and further the communist cause.

The Communist Party was well aware of the value of art as a form of propaganda but had to reconcile this with conceptions of art as the domain of the bourgeois middle classes. It was the resolution of this problem which led to the formation of a Party aesthetic – socialist realism – in 1932 which set out to demonstrate communist ideals in a way which was accessible to the proletariat. The glorification of the struggle of the working classes was a key theme along with other subject matter supportive of Party doctrine and various political stances. Dead workers accompanied by weeping wives and children and suchlike.

The role of the artist became that of an interpreter of communism for the consumption of the masses and, as a result, the Party placed increasing pressure on artists to incorporate political messages into their work. Those who adhered to socialist realism were granted acceptance and acclaim whereas those who failed faced sanctions. In France, where Picasso was living, these would not be official state sanctions but artists could expect censure in the communist media, exclusion from exhibitions and isolation by other Party members.

Picasso and Communism

Picasso seems to have had no qualms about pledging his allegiance to the Communist Party in France (PCF). In fact he described his membership as “the logical conclusion of my whole life, of my whole work” in an interview with Pol Gaillard. This statement seems totally at odds with the high value he placed on freedom of artistic expression. Digging a little deeper, Picasso’s reasons for joining were most likely as follows:

At the time the majority of French people considered the Soviet Union to be the force which had conquered Nazi Germany and (due to German involvement in the bombing of the Basque town Gernika under Franco) this would have endeared the Soviet Union to those who were opposed to Franco as Picasso was.
In the Gaillard interview, Picasso describes how oppression had strengthened a desire to fight for some sort of liberty and greater understanding of the world through his art and how he believed that his official membership of the Party would enable him to accomplish this (“these years of terrible oppression have shown me that I must fight not only through my art, but with all of myself. And so, I have come to the Communist Party without the least hesitation”)
The Party’s tendency to embrace and champion intellectual figures appealed to Picasso as an exile in a foreign land. Communism represented acceptance and finding a place where he could belong (“I have never felt freer, more complete!”).
Despite the apparent incompatibility of Picasso’s artistic output with socialist realism the Party accepted his membership gratefully. At this point Picasso’s most important function was to garner favourable prestige for the Party. The declaration of his communist loyalties became a celebrity endorsement and encouraged others to join the communist cause. As long as Picasso’s name and status could be used in this way, the incompatibility of his art tended to be glossed over. However, it could not have escaped the attention of the PCF that Picasso would be far more useful if his work could be adapted to fulfil the aims of socialist realism.

Looking at communist literature regarding Picasso’s work we see that staunch supporters of the Communist Party were scathing when discussing his art. Vladimir Kemenov, in an article for VOKS Bulletin, examined what he called “decadent bourgeois art” and denounced everything formalist and self-referential. Picasso was mentioned as a specific example and, while his political choices were applauded as part of the progressive struggle of democracy, his art was criticised for failing to express these sympathies and for indulging bourgeois falseness. All the while, socialist realism was held up as “a vital Soviet art, idealogically forward-looking and artistically wholesome”. [NB Having looked at a lot of socialist realist art for this thesis I can safely assure you that it is actually, in fact, turgid, patronising and tedious.]

In order to cope with this incongruity it became necessary to divorce Picasso as a man and a status symbol from his creative output (Kemenov helpfully describes the separation as a ‘yawning chasm’ [<3]) even though Picasso himself thought such separation to be impossible (“What do you think an artist is?… he is at the same time a political being constantly alert to the horrifying, passionate or pleasing events in the world, shaping himself completely in their image”). As such his work was just about tolerated while his support on political matters was given credit.

Despite the criticisms Picasso remained loyal to the Party thoughtout his life, even making concessions in his art and in his lifestyle in accordance with recommendations from prominent Party members. He sought the approval and acceptance of leading communists however, he could not quite bring himself to sacrifice his artistic freedom of expression since it was too closely related to his own identity. He did occasionally attempt to provide that which the Party desired, though, and Massacre in Korea represents one such effort. The Korean War was topical and provided a good opportunity to denounce the US – excellent for currying favour with the Communist Party embroiled as it was in the Cold War.

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So there you go – not so painful and hugely interesting! Next up is an analysis of the painting itself…


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Picasso: peace, love and communism
Written by James White
Picasso exhibitions rarely focus on the artist's communist sympathies


As arguably the greatest artist of the twentieth century, Pablo Picasso’s legacy has long since been assured. He was the first living artist to be honoured with a retrospective at the Louvres, an exhibition opened by President Pompidou himself, in 1971. Every aspect of the Spaniard’s near eighty year career would seem to have been considered by gallery curators. All, that is, but one. In October 1944, with the end of World War 2 in sight, Picasso at the age of 63 decided to join the French Communist Party. He said he was not only an artist but also a revolutionary.


This May, Tate Liverpool explores the artist’s post-war period in depth. The exhibition, comprising over 150 works, tackles the reasoning for the artist’s politics as well as displaying the artwork which reveal his political persuasion. The gallery’s director, Christoph Grunenberg claims that it will challenge the artist’s reputation for being, “a playboy extrovert…more concerned with chasing women than world politics.” There are letters from world leaders, including Nelson Mandela and Ho Chi Minh, as well as a telegram from Fidel Castro congratulating the artist on being awarded the Soviet Union’s international peace prize.


Picasso’s professed Communist allegiances caused a mixture of controversy and skepticism. Salvador Dali memorably exclaimed: “Picasso is a painter, so am I Picasso is Spanish, so am I, Picasso is a Communist, neither am I!” Yet from the year Picasso joined the French Communist Party in 1944 until his 1973 death, the father of Cubism’s loyalty was unswerving.


Tate Liverpool aims to shed light on what attracted Picasso to such ideals. The seeds were sown during Picasso’s residence in Barcelona, at the turn of the century, where he embraced the anarchist and pacifist movements. However, with the anarchists losing popular appeal in creative circles, he began to be drawn towards Communism.


Picasso admired the Communists for their contribution to the French Resistance during World War 2 and their continued hostility to General Franco’s fascist regime, which he vehemently opposed. Republican forces allied themselves with the Communists in The Spanish Civil War, and Picasso’s hatred of Franco ensured his political leanings remained firmly rooted on the left. As early as 1936, Picasso’s anti- Franco stance led to him being described as pintor marxista in the Spanish press.


After the Nationalists’ 1939 victory, he moved to France where he lived for the rest of his life, never to return to his homeland. The years of German occupation further fueled Picasso’s socialist tendencies. At the time, many influential figures among the French intelligentsia, such as Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Fernand Leger were left wing. They viewed Communism as the powerful force opposing Nazism. Communism was commonly shown as the enemy of Nazi suppression in resistance popular imagery. In November 1944 Picasso attended a memorial service for dead Resistance fighters at Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris.
Upon joining the French Communist party in 1944, Picasso was personally instructed by Maurice Thorez, the secretary general. Although not expected to perform daily functions, he was given prominence in initiatives like the Nationale Front des Arts. In 1945 Picasso did three realistic drawings of Thorez.


From 1947 Picasso settled in the Communist-ruled town of Vallauris on the French Riviera with Francoise Gilot. They hosted the Soviet writer Ilya Ehrenburg, and Georges Tabaraud the editor of the party newspaper Patriote de Nice, which the artist supported financially. In 1952 he produced the Mural paintings War and Peace for the new Temple of Peace in Villauris.


Picasso donated large sums of money – often in the form of artworks – to Communist-supported causes. He contributed 2.5 million and 3 million francs in 1955 and 1956 respectively for an annual party event through his dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. On another occasion, Picasso donated one million Francs to striking French coal miners.
He contributed a huge amount of works to be reproduced as fund raising calendars, Christmas cards, silk scarves or limited edition prints. The artist produced sketches for the party newspaper L’Humanité , the publication providing him with a full time staff member to help. Picasso corresponded with peace groups, refugee aid schemes and women’s groups, in Europe, North and South America, and Israel.


In the Forties and Fifties, Picasso designed posters and pamphlets for Peace Conferences. Tate Liverpool has included several versions of the dove motif which has become synonymous with the Spaniard’s role in the peace movement.


In April 1949, the Dove lithographs became the motif for Picasso’s poster announcing the World peace congress in Paris. Louis Aragon, his communist comrade had recommended to the committee that it should become a motif for the congress poster after seeing the lithograph at Picasso’s studio in Rue des Grands Augustins, Paris, in February. The lithograph had been inspired by the fan-tailed pigeon, given to the artist as a gift from Henri Matisse. Consequently, Picasso’s daughter Paloma, born on 19 April the same year, was named after the Spanish for dove. The Dove already had personal significance as his father painted doves kept in the family home.


Picasso’s preoccupation in the 40s and 50s with ceramics, and the multiple-production possibilities of lithography, perhaps reveal a desire to close the gap between high art and the masses. His party posters were designed to be cheaply copied and he even considered having his paintings reproduced to increase their accessibility.


Becoming symbolic of the international peace movement, his doves appeared on postage stamps in the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China as well as on posters, T-shirts, scarves, and mugs. His dove was so popular in the 50s, that the CIA backed Paix et Liberte movement targeted it for caricature in anti-Communist propaganda campaigns. In 1950 The New York Times mocked his “fat little pigeons.” Later Picasso provided variations of the dove for the Peace Congresses in Wroclaw, Stockholm, Sheffield, Vienna, Rome and Moscow. In August 1948 he attended the international peace congress in Breslau, and visited Warsaw, Cracow and Auschwitz. Picasso attended both the conferences of Wroclaw in Poland (1948) and Rome (1949). After his delegation was denied entry to the USA in 1950, he traveled to a congress in Sheffield in November, giving a speech. The poster he designed for the Sheffield conference showed a flying dove. In November that year he was rewarded for his efforts with the Lenin peace prize. Vienna, where this exhibition will be staged after leaving Liverpool, hosted the World Peace Congress in 1952, promoted by a poster featuring the artist’s drawing of a dove surrounded by a circle of interlocking hands.


The American government was so concerned with Picasso as a proponent of Soviet propaganda that they banned him from entry to the United States in 1950. He remained on the FBI files for the remainder of his life.


The purpose of his intended visit had been to lead 12 delegates from the Congrès Mondial des Partisans de la Paix (World Congress of Peace Partisans) to Washington to persuade President Truman to ban the atom bomb. The delegation had planned to hand a letter they had signed to Truman protesting against the NATO pact, supporting the American Communist Party, and denouncing the U.S. government’s arrest of the Hollywood Ten in 1950.


By 1950, the peace congress had already been identified as a powerful communist front.
Although apparently created independently by intellectuals to combat nuclear armaments, the international initiative was indeed orchestrated by Soviet Commissar Zhdanov to create a powerful nonmilitary weapon for the Soviet Union to confront NATO.


Despite the Spaniard’s loyalty to the cause, his creative efforts were often frowned upon by the Soviet Union. On 5 March, 1953, Stalin died. Picasso was asked by Aragon to supply a portrait for Les Lettres francaises and innocently used a 1903 photo showing a young Stalin, angering the Kremlin who deemed it insufficiently realistic, leading to a breach. It certainly didn’t dampen his enthusiasm for socialist ideals. His loyalty survived the Hungarian uprising and Prague Spring. Nevertheless, in November 1956, Picasso and other members signed a protest to the French communist party against the Soviet invasion of Hungary that was published in Le Monde.


Although admired by some party intellectuals, his deformed figures were generally considered inappropriate for ordinary Communists and not reproduced in Communist newspapers. At the Wroclaw conference, Picasso’s ‘decadent’ style was attacked by Alexander Padayev, president of the Union of Soviet Writers. Francoise Gilot recalls: “In America, they hated his politics but liked his work. When he came back from the Wroclaw conference, he said, ‘I’m hated everywhere, I like it that way!”


The party officially embraced Socialist realism and opposed Modernism. Picasso disliked the work of the socialist realists like party favourite André Fourgeron, an exponent of ‘Nouveau Realisme Francais. Paradoxically Picasso’s market and his most important admirers were in the bourgeois West.


This exhibition opens with The Charnel House (1945), a painting resonant of Guernica. His most political painting since Guernica, the work has not been seen in Britain for half a century. It was inspired by the first images of liberated concentration camps and newspaper accounts of a Spanish republic family killed while sheltering in their kitchen. In 1944, his friends the poets Max Jacob and Robert Desnos both died in concentration camps. The painting portrays the misery and the devastation of war. In an interview with US correspondent a few days after liberation of Paris he noted: “I have not painted the war, because I am not one of those painters who goes looking for motifs like a photographer. But there is no doubt that the war exists in the paintings I made at that time.”


Guernica and the Charnel House have similarities, both in terms of content and formal conception. They share a suppression of colour and a pyramidal compositional scheme that occupies the centre of Guernica and all of The Charnel House. In the latter, a pile of corpses are stacked up at the foot of a table, reflecting his anger at events. In the upper part of the canvas, on the table, a series of sketchy utensils make up a simple still life. Picasso has left areas of the still-life unpainted to retain its initial freshness. The cooking utensils remain in a room with an open door, silent witnesses to an atrocity. Unfinished sketchy strokes reinforce the overall ghostly effect. Early in 1946, the Charnel House was included in the Art et Resistance exhibition at the Musee d’Art Moderne, Paris. Pierre Daix, a friend and a survivor of Matthausen recalls Picasso worrying because it was ‘against the grain’ with the French Communist party preferring a more optimistic realism. Picasso told Daix: “A casserole can also scream! Everything can! Cezanne’s apples also can, it all depends on what the painter does!”


Picasso strongly objected to the United States’ attack on Korea in 1951 and joined in with protests. He chose the medium of paint to show his revulsion. The artist created one of the few paintings in his oeuvre to refer directly to current affairs, Massacre of Korea (1951). Tate Liverpool will exhibit this controversial work. Intended to reflect the anti-US stance of the Communist Party as regards to the Korean War, it was exhibited in Paris at the Salon de Mai but not well received. Comrades were disappointed by his decision not to identify aggressors. It was inspired by Goya’s indictment of systematic slaughter in the image of firing squads, The 3rd of May 1808 and Manet’s Execution of Maximillian (1867). Picasso withdrew his support for the communists after his failure to win approval with this painting, although he remained a member for the rest of his life.


The composition shows a group of naked women and children being shot by nude soldiers with modern rifles, the aggressors’ identities concealed by helmets and masks. The little boy close to the pregnant woman refers to his partner at the time, Gilot and their children Claude and Paloma. Goya depicts Madrid and some victims have already been executed yet the position of characters in each section is almost identical in the paintings by Goya and Picasso. Their firing squads are depicted as automata to condemn the brutality of the violence. Touches of ochre and green appear in Picasso’s arid landscape with the rest painted in shades grey tones like Guernica and the Charnel House. A zigzagging river symbolizes the division of Korea. It lacks his usual formal and symbolic ambiguity, being an uncharacteristically clear depiction of a contemporary event. It was triggered by a reported incident that occurred in July 1950, when the US air force opened fire on unarmed South Korean refugees from a village running towards a tunnel, killing 300. Massacre in Korea was not simply the product of his left-wing beliefs but was also motivated by his association with pacifist movements and defense of human rights.


In 1954 the New York Sunday Mirror declared “before the red bug bit him, Picasso was the greatest painter of our time.” According to Gertje Uttley, Picasso’s communism encouraged the general decline of his reputation in the US in the 50s and turned off some of his American buyers.


US art critics described the painting as a work “of marginal artistic value on account of its forced ideological message.” The composition exposes the problem posing any artist, the conciliation of moral and political ideals with creative freedom. However Picasso liked the painting, unusually giving it its title, and kept it with him alongside works he considered special. In 1956, his image of Korea was paraded through Warsaw in support of victims of the Soviet invasion of Hungary. When the rock group Nirvana held a charity concert to support the victims of violence committed in Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, the image they used as a motif was Massacre in Korea.


Picasso’s still lifes of the 40s and early 50s are frequently ‘Mementi mori’ reminders of mortality. The sombre tones and backgrounds of paintings such as Monument to the Spanish who Died for France, (1945-47) are reminiscent of ‘vanitas’ paintings by Zurbaran and Pereda. Death looms over his painting Goat’s skull, Bottle and Candle (1952). That year, the partisan and Communist leader Niklos Beloyannis was executed by the Greek government. Picasso was deeply saddened. Unlike with Massacre in Korea, he referred to this current event only implicitly.


The show also features Picasso’s The Rape of the Sabine Women, a variation on Jacques-Louis David’s masterpiece. A series entitled The Rape of the Sabines was begun in 1962 in response to the Cuban Missile crisis and culminated in the large version of 1963. It would be a generic condemnation of violence and war. Elements of the composition and individual figures are derived from two well-known masterpieces by Nicolas Poussin (The Rape of the Sabines) and one by David. In this series he reflected universal social and political concerns of the time. From then on Picasso would focus exclusively on his own projects. In 1962 he was awarded the Lenin peace prize for the second time on 1 May. He shared the Stalin Peace Prize and World Peace Prize with the US singer Paul Robeson and the Chilean writer Pablo Neruda.


This show represents a long-needed examination of the impact that Picasso’s political beliefs and role as a peace campaigner had on his career. Tate Liverpool’s director Christoph Grunenberg states: “People have tried to downplay Picasso’s political involvement but he was a full party member and was clearly highly committed to the peace movement.”
PICASSO: PEACE AND FREEDOM’ at The Tate Gallery Liverpool, May 21 - 30 August 2010