Guernica

In my review of last year I said that my favourite exhibition of 2004 was "Picasso: War And Peace" at the Museu Picasso in Barcelona. Gijs van Hensbergen has now published his Guernica: The Biography of a 20th Century Icon which is reviewed here. Van Hensbergen notes that Guernica's viewers have been "dumbstruck and mesmerised by the power and scale of the image as they stare wide-eyed at the painful drama acted out before them". I certainly was. The painting still speaks to us lucidly today.