Contra Guernica

I found a book today called Contra el Guernica by the Spanish painter Antonio Saura (1930-1998)(brother to Carlos the film director.) It's not really an attack on Picasso's painting or on Picasso himself, though sometimes it is disguised as that, as much as on the use of the painting as political and cultural capital. It was first published in 1982.

It is an amazing book. Every sentence starts with a verb meaning "I hate": detesto, odio, desprecio... It admits of at least three readings: an attack on a sacred cow, an attack on those who made it a sacred cow, an ironical and ambivalent homage to Picasso.

This is pretty much what I want to say about misuses of Lorca. The preface by Félix de Azúa is also brilliant. I was thinking I could cite this book and transpose the analysis to the sacralization of Lorca.

After all, Guernica and Lorca are the two major symbols of THE TRAGEDY OF 20TH CENTURY SPAIN. They are sacred cows in a very similar way. This I think should be the conclusion to my book.