Claudia Massie

A blunt instrument of war

It’s laden with meaning, but frustratingly opaque. Even Picasso’s interpretation was inconsistent

issue 11 November 2017

It takes a bold author to open his book about ‘Guernica’ with a quotation from the Spanish artist Antonio Saura lamenting ‘the number of bad books that have been written and will be written’ about it. Fortunately, James Attlee’s study of Picasso’s superstar work of art is not a bad book and he builds on a solid cultural and historic understanding of the painting to collate 80 years of evolving reaction to it.

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