iatica. Two other tragic events happened to Picasso during the month of January 1939. On January 13, Picasso's mother died. On the 26th, Franco's army completed its victory over the Spanish republic and set up its fascist regime. These two events had a profound effect on Picasso. He thereafter openly expressed his negative feelings towards Franco's regime and used his paintings, especially his great mural Guernica to "clearly express [his] abhorrence of the military caste which", he believed, had "sunk Spain [into] an ocean of pain and death." (Barnes)The way Picasso set about painting has been well documented by many people. Roland Penrose, in writing about a photographic study of the artist at work, eloquently describes the conflicting influences seen in Picasso's method of creation.The first is the positive clarity with which the idea is born. Picasso, particularly when he begins to draw on a virgin surface, seems to trace the outline of a vision which is already there but visible only to him. For a time he continues with complete conviction but as the drawing materializes a second phase begins which is like a dialogue between him and the image to which he has given birth. The image has already been given a personality of its own which can provoke surprises that demand to be taken into account. Picasso 'the finder' can now interpret the impatient demands of his offspring and with a parent's insight he guides his child as it grows in stature or rescues it if it stumbles. The artist and his creation during this time are inseparably linked; they reciprocate, and rise or fall together. He is the product of his own work. (Barnes)Furthermore, as Picasso pointed out to Christian Zervos:I see for others, that is to say, in order to put on canvas the sudden apparitions which come to me, I don't know in advance what I am going to put on canvas any more that I decide beforehand what colours I am going to use. While I am working I am not conscio...
