| Massacre in Korea | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Pablo Picasso |
| Year | 1951 |
| Medium | Oil on plywood |
| Dimensions | 110 cm × 210 cm (43.3 in × 82.7 in) |
| Location | Museo Picasso Malaga, Malaga |
Massacre in Korea (French: Massacre en Corée) is an expressionistic painting completed on 18 January 1951 by Pablo Picasso. Picasso's third anti-war painting after Guernica and The Charnel House, Massacre depicts a scene of a massacre of a group of naked women and children by a firing squad. It has been considered to be a condemnation of American intervention in the Korean War.[1][2][3] The painting was exhibited in the Musée Picasso in Paris.
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Transcription
somewhere between a hundred and two hundred thousand were killed in the early months of the war in political violence that adds up to about another hundred thousand that were killed in political violence from nineteen forty five to nineteen fifty and so i mentioned in the book that they had been studying in spain scholars had been studying franco's uh... political massacres and the figures in about seventy five percent of the provinces or counties where they've been able to do this research come up to around two hundred thousand franco's spain or korea franco's spain willoughby didn't write about that I presume no korea's worse in other words and it happened often in full view of americans now the worst incident no review that i've seen has wanted to get into this but i called it our srebrenitza because somewhere between as many as seven thousand political prisoners were murdered in a period of days they were put into pits with our c_i_a_ people watching our military people watching uh... the south korean police did this and then it was covered up blamed on the communists even our official history of the war by roy appleman blames all this entire Taejon massacre happened at small city of Taejon blames it on the communists uh... and then the joint chiefs of staff classify the photographs of it 'cause photographs make it clear who's doing it and they don't let the photographs out till nineteen ninety nine when a korean finally got them declassified so in other words they knew what our south korean army and police were doing but how can you take a massacre of seven thousand people turnaround and blame it on the communists rather than stopping it when it was going on and then the pentagon did a video uh... a little movie called crime of korea that's where you see the best shots of the pits that go on for like a football field pit after pit of dead people and then humphrey bogart is in a voice-over saying someday the communists will pay for this someday we'll get the full totals and believe me we'll get the exact accurate totals of the people murdered here and we will make these war criminals pay and everywhere lay the murdered dead the scenery of destruction is monotonous atrocity stories keep repeating themselves how can I tell you what can i show you of the ten thousand human beings slaughtered in Seoul perhaps it isn't exactly ten thousand perhaps the total figure right now is approximate if that makes any difference in time we'll get a careful tabulation we'll learn the exact number of the slaughtered down to the last corpse now this is a complete reversal of black and white done as a matter of policy and i was astonished when i didn't know about it I didn't know about it reminds one where the communists blamed the nazis and everybody believed them until we found out it was really the communists yeah it is a uh... an aspect of a very deep american responsibility for the regime that we promoted more really more than any other in east asia it was our creation this excerpt is brought to you by the Massachusetts school of law
Background
Massacre in Korea is the third in a series of anti-war paintings created by Picasso. It was preceded by the monumental Guernica, painted in 1937, and The Charnel House, painted from 1944 to 1945. The title of this painting refers to the outbreak of the Korean War, which had started in the previous year, yet the subject matter is ambiguous, as Picasso does not point directly to a period or location within the composition.[4]
Picasso was exposed to the effects of war throughout his entire life and this had a direct impact on his artwork. From a young age, he began to include war motifs in his work. When the Spanish Civil War broke out, Picasso was deeply affected by it, which led to his painting of Guernica in 1937. Although Picasso did not take part in any war or serve as a soldier, he would use his artwork to make political statements. He claimed that his artwork was a "journal" that documented not only his personal life, but also the conflicts of his era. World War II marked a period of major upheaval and during this period, Picasso lived in occupied Paris. When France was liberated from the Nazis, he became committed to using his art for political statements. His post-war art therefore displays anti-war images and symbols of peace.[5] Reports of German atrocities in the Holocaust are also thought to be the main inspiration behind the unfinished Charnel House, though its content was drawn from Picasso's experiences in Spain similar to Guernica.[6]
Description
The painting may depict an event similar to the No Gun Ri Massacre in July 1950, when an undetermined number of South Korean refugees were massacred by U.S. soldiers, or the Sinchon Massacre of the same year, a mass killing carried out in the county of Sinchon, South Hwanghae Province, North Korea. Massacre in Korea depicts civilians being killed by anti-communist forces. The art critic Kirsten Hoving Keen says that it is "inspired by reports of American atrocities" in Korea.[7] At 43 inches (1.1 m) by 82 inches (2.1 m), the work is smaller than his Guernica, to which it bears a conceptual resemblance as well as an expressive vehemence.[8]
Picasso's work is influenced by Francisco Goya's painting The Third of May 1808, which shows Napoleon's soldiers executing Spanish civilians under the orders of Joachim Murat.[7] It stands in the same iconographic tradition of an earlier work modeled after Goya: Édouard Manet's series of five paintings depicting the execution of Emperor Maximilian, completed between 1867 and 1869.
As with the Third of May, Picasso's painting is marked by a bifurcated composition, divided into two distinct parts. To the left, a group of naked women and children are seen situated at the foot of a mass grave. A number of heavily armed "knights" stand to the right, also naked, but equipped with "gigantic limbs and hard muscles similar to those of prehistoric giants." The firing squad is rigidly poised as in Goya. In Picasso's representation, however, the group is manifestly helter-skelter – as was often apparent in his portrayals of armored soldiers in drawings and lithographs – which may be taken to indicate an attitude of mockery of the idiocy of war. Their helmets are misshapen, and their weaponry is a mishmash amalgamation of the instruments of aggression from the medieval period to the modern era; not quite guns nor lances, they perhaps most resemble candlesticks. What is more, none of the soldiers have penises. This representational feature is highlighted by the pregnant state of the women on the left side of the panel. Many viewers have interpreted that the soldiers, in their capacity as destroyers of life, have substituted guns for their penises, thereby castrating themselves and depriving the world of the next generation of human life. Along with Guernica and The Charnel House (1944–45), this is one of Picasso's works that he composed to depict the politics of his time.[9]
Significance and legacy
Massacre in Korea is often overlooked and overshadowed in cultural consciousness by Guernica. It is more literal in its visual storytelling than the fragmented symbolism of the earlier, more famous work. When the painting was first viewed in 1951, it was not well received. Isabelle Limousin, exhibition curator, explained that the work was dismissed, as "too easy, too readable for contemporaries of the artist", yet she considers it to be "a very strong work".[10]
Museu Picasso de Barcelona describes the painting as, "one of Picasso's most important pacifist works in defense of human rights, beyond ideologies and sides."
Pierre Daix, an expert on Picasso, opined that the painting has "entered within the great tradition of paintings of cruelty, a 20th century version of the Massacre of the Innocents".[11]
2022 vandalism incident
On 9 October 2022, two activists from the environmental pressure group Extinction Rebellion glued their hands to the painting using superglue while it was on loan to the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. Their hands were attached to the perspex glazing protecting the painting but later removed without damage to the artwork. The activists were arrested but later released without charge.[12]
See also
- Dove, lithograph by Picasso (1949)
- Anti-American sentiment in Korea
- Bodo League massacre
- List of massacres in South Korea
- No Gun Ri massacre
References
- ^ David Hopkins, After Modern Art: 1945–2000 (Oxford University Press, 2000), p.15. ISBN 0-19-284234-X, ISBN 978-0-19-284234-3
- ^ Picasso A Retrospective, Museum of Modern Art, edited by William Rubin, copyright MoMA 1980, p.383
- ^ Ingo F. Walther, Pablo Picasso, 1881–1973: Genius of the Century (Taschen, 2000), p. 94. ISBN 3-8228-5970-2, ISBN 978-3-8228-5970-4
- ^ Lentini, Damian. "Massacre en Corée (Massacre in Korea)". Haus Der Kunst. Archived from the original on 28 May 2022. Retrieved 28 December 2020.
- ^ "Picasso and War" (PDF). Musée de l'Armee Invalides. February 2019. Archived (PDF) from the original on 20 June 2022. Retrieved 28 December 2020.
- ^ Daix 1987, p. 281
- ^ a b Keen, Kirsten Hoving. "Picasso's Communist Interlude: The Murals of War and Peace". The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 122, No. 928, Special Issue Devoted to Twentieth Century Art, July, 1980. p. 464.
- ^ Boeck & Sabartés, p. 302.
- ^ Nicholas John Cull, David Holbrook Culbert, David Welch, Propaganda and mass persuasion: a historical encyclopedia, 1500 to the present (ABC–CLIO, 2003), p.156. ISBN 1-57607-820-5, ISBN 978-1-57607-820-4
- ^ Grovier, Kelly (20 June 2019). "Picasso: The ultimate painter of war?". BBC Culture. Archived from the original on 30 November 2022. Retrieved 28 December 2020.
- ^ "Massacre in Korea, the Guernica of the Cold War". Museu Picasso de Barcelona. 8 January 2020. Archived from the original on 30 November 2022. Retrieved 28 December 2020.
- ^ Ore, Adeshola (2022-10-09). "Prized Picasso 'unharmed' after Extinction Rebellion activists glue hands to painting in Melbourne". the Guardian. Archived from the original on 2023-04-23. Retrieved 2022-10-14.
Sources
- Daix, Pierre (1987). Picasso. London: Thames & Hudson.
This page was last edited on 12 April 2024, at 21:53