Int J Polit Cult Soc (2014) 27:443457

DOI 10.1007/s10767-014-9176-9

Why Guernica became a Globally Used Icon of Political

Protest? Analysis of its Visual Rhetoric and Capacity
to Link Distinct Events of Protests into a Grand
Narrative

Akos Kopper

Published online: 4 April 2014

# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Abstract There is a growing interest in the role images play in political life. In this article, I
look at how citizens as artists in their ateliers or protesters on the streets at different corners of
the globe use Guernica to make political statement. First, there is a contextual analysis
uncovering various layers of signification, which together constitute what Guernica,
Picassos monumental 1937 painting speaks about and turned it into the global icon of
political protest. Second, it is shown why Guernica offers a powerful rhetoric hailing its
spectators into a categorical subject position not to accept inflicting such horrors on defenseless
othersas those that the residents of Guernica facedfor example, in Vietnam, Iraq, or Syria.

Keywords Visual rhetoric . Contextuality . Visual acts . Iconicity . Civic discourses . Network of
images

An episode from the past interests us only inasmuch as it becomes an episode of the
present where in our thoughts, actions, and strategies are decided (Rancire 1991,
p. xxi)

Introduction

There is a growing interest in the role images play in political life (Sontag 2003, Williams
2003; Campbell 2004; Campbell and Shapiro 2007; Dauphine 2007; Dodds 2007; Mller
2007; McDonald 2008; Vuori 2010; Hansen 2011), and the particular features of visual
rhetoric (Barthes 1978a; Blair 2004; Foss 2005; Goalwin 2013). The aim of this paper is to
contribute to this growing literature by first elucidating how images communicate their
messages and contextualize political acts in a wider narrative, and second, what makes the

A. Kopper (*)
ELTE University, Department of European Studies, and MTA-ELTE PERIPATO Comparative Social
Dynamics Research Group, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
e-mail: akoskopper@gmail.com
444 Kopper

rhetoric of images extremely powerful, inviting spectators into subject positions where they
can hardly resist the categorical normative call of images, such as Guernica.
The puzzle that led to this study is why citizens all around the world turn to the image of
Guernica whenever they wish to express their discontent and outrage. Artists are continuously
using Guernica as a template to create their own images with strong political messages.1 Also,
not only in the West protesters are seen carrying around placards of Guernica, but also in
China, Japan, or Thailand, using Guernica to call out to the World, most recently in Syria
apropos of the bombardment of Aleppo,2 or the chemical attack believed to be committed by
the Assad regime.3 In order to answer the question why this painting is so popular globally, it
is necessary to elucidate how images convey their message and what differentiates them
from verbal messages. Although speech acts are much discussed, especially in security studies,
visual acts are a somewhat neglected field of study and traditionally the rhetorical capacity of
visuals has been outside the purview of studies on rhetoric (Foss 2005). Particularly neglected
are the symbolic qualities of images that enable them to make inferences, allude to past
events, and thereby contextualize political acts in a wider narrative.4 The argument in this
paper is that by showing Guernica at protests, or using it as a template for pieces of art, it
connects otherwise distinct events of protest into a grand narrative. Thus, in a sense, claims
made on the occasions when Guernica is shown are universalized, that is, are linked up with
general discourses about injustices, about authorities abusing their power, and inflicting
horrors on innocent others. This recurrent use of Guernica, however, also reflects on what it
communicates, turning the picture into an icon, an icon that refers less and less to atrocities of
the Spanish Civil War and invokes instead more and more a universal normative call.
In order to elucidate this question, the article proceeds in three steps. First, by relying on
recent works on visual rhetoric, the paper discusses how images speak to usand can
be made to speakdespite the polysemy of the meanings they carry. Second, it is shown
howwhat we calllayers of signification get attached to images, enlarge their reference
by decoupling them from the particular context of their creation and turn them into icons with
their own histories of appropriation and commentary (Hariman and Lucaites 2007, p. 1).
Finally, the third section of the paper demonstrates why Guernica has such a powerful rhetoric
and how it pulls its spectators into an unambiguous subject position, where they can hardly
contest its normative call (even though they may contest its relevance for the event in case). It
is discussed how, given their immediacy, images can provoke involuntary reactions (Blair
2004, p. 53) and tap into the tacit knowledge of their spectators (Hariman and Lucaites 2007).
At the same time, it is also argued that certain imageslike Guernica and two other examples
citedreject the polarization of the social universe and particularly emergency politics, by
calling out for upholding universal moral standards. Thus, they suggest that nothing could
justify inflicting such pain and suffering on others as it happened in Guernica.

1
By templates and by inspiration, I mean artworks where the link to Guernica is trivial, thus lay observers can
recognize it with ease and thereby a connection is easily established. Hence, I do not refer to occasions where
artists are inspired, for example, by the technique applied and the link to the original requires an expert observer.
2
On the internet page, the first image we see is the destroyed city of Aleppo with the image of Guernica
superimposed, see at: http://www.therevoltingsyrian.com/post/34709582696/pablo-picassos-guernica-
superimposed-on-a-scene (accessed: Sept 6, 2013)
3
The image: Syrian Guernica by Alisar Iram, posted on September 3, 2013, see at: http://alisariram.wordpress.
com/ (accessed: Sept 6, 2013)
4
By acts, I mean politically motivated deeds that question the moral appropriateness of established practices.
Pieces of art and artistic performances often raise moral issues. I suggest, however, regarding as acts those that
directly refer to a particular event, especially if this is done in a way that the linkage is clear to the observers, as in
the case of Sophie Matisse naming her image Guernica 911 (see later).
Why Guernica became a Globally Used Icon of Political Protest?... 445

At this stage, it is necessary to make three caveats. First, it should be emphasized that the
aim is not to offer a complete account of Guernicas history, but only to offer snapshots to
highlight how its iconicity is created and continuously reinforced.5 Second, it is important to
highlight that the research question is not why at one particular instant Guernica was used,
with what effect and by whom. Instead, what I am interested in is the network that distinct
occasions of using Guernica create, turning Guernica into a political icon that citizens
choose to express their grievances in China, Japan, Thailand, Syria, Palestine, the USA, and all
around Europe. I contend that by these recurrent references Guernicas iconicity is reinforced,
which as Bernhard Giesen underlines means that the enigmatic ambivalence (and polysemy
of available interpretations that generally characterizes images) is overwritten by the iconic
message immediately understood by observers (see here Giesen 2012, p. 247). In other words,
by making the choice for Guernica, protesters and artists know that they turn to an image,
which is globally known and understood. Thirdly, it is obvious that talking about images without
illustrations makes little sense. Unfortunately, no academic journal could afford to reproduce in
good quality the numerous images referred to throughout the text. Thus, the reader is
encouraged to follow the internet-links provided or google the images on the net.

The Rhetoric and renting of Images

Our modern world is awash with images. In our daily life, we are constant addressees of visual
stimuli, thus it is paramount to understand how images speak to us, communicate messages,
convey meaning, and trigger our emotions. Using the words of Barthes, the question could be
How does meaning get into the image? (Barthes 1978a, p. 32) There is no doubt that claims
need not be verbal and images may also be used as vehicles of making political claims. In
addition, it is also recognized that the grammar and rhetoric of images is particular (Foss
2005, p. 143).
It is the prevailing impression that the meaning conveyed by images is more ambiguous
than the meaning conveyed by words, leaving excessive freedom for interpretation, leading to
uncertainties concerning what images actually communicate in political terms. One possibility
is to regard images as mere exclamation marks attracting attention to otherwise already
provided meanings.i Thus, along these lines, placards of Guernica carried around at protests
are just colorful and decorative representations of what otherwise could be summarized as No
war, Stop aggression, Stop inflicting pain on innocents, or Do not abuse power.
It is, however, believed that by subscribing to this position, much is overlooked about what
images do and the way they invoke narratives of much greater depth than verbal communi-
cations via their semiotic capacity. No doubt, semiotic richness comes with a multitude of
potential interpretations. This richness of the meaning of imagesa richness that may also be
regarded as blurriness or ambiguitymay actually have its merits. Wittgenstein convincingly
argues that all our concepts are essentially blurred.
#71. One can say that the concept of game is a concept with blurred edges. But is a
blurred concept a concept at all? Is a photograph that is not sharp a picture of a person at all?
Is it always an advantage to replace a picture that is not sharp by one that is? Isnt one that isnt
sharp often just what we need? (emphasis in original) (Wittgenstein 2009, 38e).

5
It is far beyond the scope of this paper to offer a detailed story of Guernica, the town, the creation of the
painting, and its afterlife. For these, the interested reader should consult, for example, Russell Martins Picassos
War (2002); Van Hensbergens Guernica The Biography of a Twentieth Century Icon (2005); or Herbert M.
Southworths Guernica! Guernica! A Study of Journalism, Diplomacy, Propaganda and History (1977).
446 Kopper

This blurriness is especially pertinent in case of ethical concepts (see Wittgenstein 2009,
40e). Concepts that are essential to political contestations such as equality, liberty, suffer-
ing, or security are difficult to pin down by comprehensive definitions, because they are so
rich and multi-faceted in their meaning.6 We may protest verbally against the nastiness of war
and condemn aggression against the defenseless. Nevertheless, images like Guernica offer a
narrative more powerful than thousands of words, capturing the various aspects of what we
abhor about war, aggression, pain, and suffering inflicted on the innocent.ii Images captivate
observers by offering holistic sensations via their immediacy. In this sense, they are more
powerful than verbal narratives because readers are immediately confronted with their message
and they do not have the option of stopping to turn the pages and stopping to follow how the
narrative unfolds.
Despite the difference between messages conveyed by words and by images, concepts and
theories of language philosophy offer valuable tools to study images (Pateman 1980). In fact,
there are many similarities between the languages we speak and the language of visual
representation. Similarly to the way one needs to learn the language in which an utterance
has been made in order to understand it, one also needs to learn to see what there is in an
image. Gombrich warns us not to think naively that images are simply out there. As he
emphasizes, Any picture, by its very nature, remains an appeal to the visual imagination; it
must be supplemented in order to be understood (Gombrich 2002, p. 204). He argues that it
requires visual fluency to interpret images, a fluency different for people of various ages and
cultures. Although, for example, we are accustomed to the sensation of perspective in images,
men of earlier ages were not. Thus, we understand the perspective, but due to our knowledge
we are blind to see other possible three-dimensional configurations that the image might
equally depict (Gombrich 2002, p. 210).
What we see in an image, how we interpret it, and what effect it has on us is dependent on
the visual and cultural canon in which we as spectators are located. Giddenss observation
about texts is equally true for images: Since the understanding of a text is a creative mediation
of traditions, such understanding is an unending process; it can never be completed, because
new meanings are continually brought into being through readings of the work within fresh
traditions (Giddens 1993, p. 70). Unpacking the symbolism of an image calls, therefore, for a
contextual analysis, through which the image is located in an intervisual, intertextual universe.
Texts, as Kristeva and Bakhtin point out, exist in a relationship to a corpus of other texts, an
approach that Hansen (2011) adopted to the study of images. In Kristevas formulation, a text
is always an intersection of the textual surfaces of the cultural context of its creation; any
text is constructed as a mosaic of quotations; any text is the absorption and transformation of
another (1980, p. 66). Therefore, understanding a text (or an image) cannot be restricted to the
study of the text (or image) itself, but must also include a trans-linguistic approach, which
reveals intertextual relationships (or intervisual relationships). The text is beyond the author. It
is not a line of words releasing a single theological meaning (the message of the
Autho-God) but a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them
original, blend and clash. The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable
centers of culture (Barthes 1978b, p. 146).

6
It is no wonder that objects like the Statue of Liberty have such symbolic significance. Societies can find in
them their shared belief in the importance of liberty, even if they would have a hard time putting into words what
liberty should actually amount to. At the same time, these concepts can easily be turned into ideographs or what
Lincoln called glittering generalities, that is, their vagueness and ambiguity can be exploited by astute political
rhetoric.
Why Guernica became a Globally Used Icon of Political Protest?... 447

The text is appropriated by its readers for whom it becomes like a rented apartment that
they refurnish on the basis of their dispositions, the cultural background they bring with
themselves (Certeau 1984: xxi).7 Guernica just like other images offers its spectators the
opportunity to interpret it in numerous ways, depending on the dispositions they approach it
with: whether they realize the symbolism of a nativity scene implied in the image, or if they
come with eyes trained on the visual imagery of a Japanese manga. The objective of the
present paper is, however, not to capture this multitude of potential meanings of images, but to
flesh out that its recurrent renting in politicized contexts contributes to its iconization and
reinforces its visual rhetoric. The argument I make is that as Guernica is used and reused again
and again in highly politicized contexts, it is reinforced as a political icon, with its meaning
increasingly crystallized. Giesen points out that although enigmatic ambivalence is the
hallmark of pictorial art at the same time, it is the distinctive quality of images turned into
icons that they are immediately understood even if their meaning is diffused and vague
(Giesen 2012, p. 247). There is no contradiction between vagueness and clarity of meaning.
Although images are like rented apartments with each observer interpreting them freely, in
case of icons, this hermeneutical liberty is overwritten by shared understandings. It is the
ongoing process of iconizing Guernicaand the creation of a shared understandingof which
I will offer snapshots below, where protesters not only use Guernica to enhance their claims,
but by the same token they also contribute to the process of iconizing it and keeping it alive as
a political icon.8 Binder points out that although post-modern times lack grand narratives, such
iconic images as Abu Ghraib or Guernica provide us with a Manichean imagery of good and
evil and thereby offer us the closest we have to grand narratives that offer shared reference
points for global civic discourses (Binder 2012, pp. 113114).9
Foss argues that not every image can be interpreted as a piece of visual rhetoric. In fact, she
claims that three markers are required for this: the image should be symbolic, there needs to be
some human interventionthat is the intent to communicate a messageand finally, there
should be a target audience (Foss 2005, p. 144). On the primary level, human intervention is
tied to the creation of the image, when the photographer or painter creates the image and
presents it to an audience with the intent to communicate a message. When, subsequently, an
image is kept hanging on the wall of a museum or put in an album, this rhetorical component
starts to fade away with the image increasingly becoming a historical relic. This does not
prevent it from having an enormous aesthetic or even ethical impact; nevertheless, it is less and
less about a political message communicated between creator and spectator. Putting it differ-
ently, its ethical message can be powerful yet it is not a political message. For an imagefor
example, Guernicato come to life again in political terms, it must be made to speak to the
present. It is to be presented to an audience by someone renting it in order to express a
political statement, that is, it needs to be continuously re-iconized.10
But why did Guernica turn into a political icon, while Charnel House a later Picasso image
did not, although some believe it is an even more expressive piece of art (Cousen 2009, p. 53).

7
Not everybody shares this opinion on hermeneutical contingency and relativism. See, for example, Hirsch's
major work, Validity in Interpretation (1967).
8
In this sense, Orthodox icons taken out of the context of the audience for which they convey a deep and
spiritual message turn into ordinary images.
9
Harimans and Lucaites discuss iconic images (photographs) as civic performances and their role in practices of
citizenship by equipping the viewer to act as a citizen, or expand ones conception of citizenship, or otherwise
redefine ones relationship to the political community (Harimans and Lucaites: 18).
10
Boehm argues that images not only re-present in the sense of presenting again what they depict, but in case of
powerful images representation means intensification, adding a surplus to the existence of the depicted (Boehm
2012). Thus, the use and reuse of an image can enhance its rhetoric power.
448 Kopper

This can be partly explained by favorable circumstances. For example, journalists stationed in
Bilbao were close enough to report the horrors of Guernica11; Picasso heard about the event
right at the moment when he had to create a piece of art for the World Exhibition and activists
right after the exhibition used Guernica to further their effort in collecting support for the
republican side in the Spanish Civil War.12 The fact that it was chosen to decorate the UN
building in New York reinforced its political message, just as much as the fact that it is
introduced even to students outside the West, for example, Japanese kids meet Guernica in
their schoolbooks. All this has contributed to Guernica turning into a political icon. Without
focusing on the initial history of iconizing Guernica, below I highlight stages of renting
Guernica for making political statements and using it for linking up otherwise distinct events
via analogy, by artists creating associated artworks, or by people in street demonstrations,
expressing their outrage at things which they believe are absolutely impermissible.

Layers of signification

It seems to be the prevailing assumption that images are secondary to words, their meaning
is elliptical and they require captions or an anchorage in an already existing setting in order
to speak to us.iii One of the important insights that the following contextual analysis
shows is that the issue is more complex. Images live in both a verbal/literal context and
also in a visual contextuality (Hansen 2011) and can also turn into a sort of visual
caption, offering an interpretative framework for subsequent images. This paper captures
how images speak and become vehicles of political acts by offering snapshots of the
various layers of signification, which constitute what the image of Guernica stands for.
When artists invoke Guernica in their artwork or citizens protest on the street using
Guernica, they use it as a rhetorical tool to underline their claim by buying into the
established narrative of Guernica; whereas at the same time, they also add additional
layers to what it signifies for us.
The first layer of signification offering the framework for interpreting an image is in the
semiotic attributes of its visual imagery created by the artist who produced the image. Every
piece of art, any text or image is created in a cultural environment to which it makes conscious
and unconscious references. Artists reflect on their predecessors on the techniques, the styles,
and the modes of composition they developed. Picasso was, for example, greatly influenced by
the works of Goya (Hensbergen 2005, p. 252) and Rubens, Titian or Greco (Melcn 2009). It
is the subject of iconographic study to interpret the semiotic composition of an image. In case
of Guernica, for example, Melcn argues that Picasso recalls the customary depiction of the

11
Journalists and the international press played a decisive role in picking up the story of Guernica and making it
known worldwide. The atrocity committed by the Condor Legion almost immediately became global news. This
was thanks to foreign journalists who rushed to Guernica from the nearby Bilbao. The English press was
immediately filled with the news identifying the Germans as the culprits (Holme 1995). Although today we are
hardly aware of it, Guernica was not unprecedented. Just a little before Guernica, on the 31st of March, the city of
Durangoaway from foreign journalistswas destroyed similarly (Southworth 1977, p. 373).
12
The Guernica painting played a political role from the moment of its creation. After the World Exhibition it
was taken to Scandinavia and England to gather support for the Republican side in the War. In London at
Whitechapel, where it was exhibited, over 12,000 visitors brought pairs of shoes, as requested in support for the
Republican side (Martin 2002: p. 138). Next, the picture was taken to several big cities of the USA with the same
purpose. The painting was taken into an international tour also in the 1950s, before it was placed into the
Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1955. Picasso firmly objected to having the painting taken to Spain
during the Franco era. Finally, it was after Francos 1975 death and the 1978 democratic constitution that the
painting finally reached Spain, although not the Basque Land.
Why Guernica became a Globally Used Icon of Political Protest?... 449

manger with the nativity scene with all its elements, such as the ox, the mule, the Virgin Mary,
and the star (Melcn 2009, p.106). These issues, however, are beyond the scope of the present
paper; these are topics art historians to discuss. Suffice it to say that an image is never created
in isolation, but in relation to other images, offering a symbolism which links up a multitude of
potential narratives, some of which perhaps not even the artist is aware of.
The second layer of signification is created with the presentation of the image. What is the
context within which a picture is shown? Is it placed in a gallery, is it made as a mural or
graffiti for the street, or is it created for a private collectors bedroom? Is it created in reflection
to a particular event? Picasso believed paintings can express political statements and are not
only made to decorate walls. This is definitely true for Guernica, which was made for the
Spanish Pavilion of the 1937 Paris World Exhibition at the time Spain was ravaged by Civil
War. Although Picasso had been asked to produce a painting for the Pavilion, he had been
lacking inspiration up to the moment the news of the bombing of the town of Guernica reached
him. At that moment, he got inspired and was able to complete the paintings in a few weeks.
Events of the civil war were followed by great global interest, because it was the first war that
photographers followed closely with their cameras, sending their pictures to daily papers around the
globe (Sontag 2003, p. 21). Hence, the context was ripe for Guernica to become a symbol of the
republican effort. Undoubtedly, at the time Guernica was yet intimately linked with the Civil War.
Nevertheless, as decades passed by, Guernica acquired additional layers of signification and turned
into a political icon connected to protests, which is what we are foremost interested in here.
The third and fourth layers of signification identified below are linked to the after-life of
an image. The third layer is made up of works of artists that Guernica inspired. As Guernica
became an icon, it has inspired artists to use it as a template in their work.13 The following
examples are by artists who used Guernica to make political statements: Nadia Plesner with
her painting Darfurnicaiv; Ron English with Grade School Guernicav; Michael Heath with
Srebrenica (Heath 1993); Sophie Matisse with 911 Guernicavi; Alisar Irams Syrian Guernica
mentioned in the introduction; and Xiao QiangHou with his caricature.vii The titles
Darfurnica, Srebrenica, and Guernica 911 speak for themselves. On one occasion, Ron
English hung his Guernica-inspired painting on the Wall built in Palestine by Israel to protest
against its creation. Hous caricature depicts a conference room with Guernica in the back-
ground and soldiers sitting around in a circle. The caricature perhaps alludes to the UN
Security Council, in front of which a tapestry modeled on Guernica is hung. It was here, in
front of the Security Council that Colin Powell made the 2003 announcement about the
bombing of Iraq, during which a blue cloth covered Guernica, providing Colin Powell with
a solid blue background (Dodds 2007, p. 164).
The image of Guernica is occasionally used in somewhat unconventional ways by activists
framing political messages. In February 28, 1974, the Iranian Tony Shafrazi sprayed on
Guernica the text KILL LIES ALL with red paint in the Museum of Modern Arts in New
York. He wanted to raise public awareness of the massacre at My Lai in the Vietnam War.
When asked years later what motivated him, he said he did not want Guernica to turn into an
art-historical relic of the past; he wanted it to be absolutely up to date, to retrieve it from art
history and give it life (Saltz 2008).
On other occasions, the reference to Guernica is only in the title chosen by the artist without
visual similarities with Picassos image. For example, Botero, the Columbian painter best
known for painting corpulent figures, referred to Guernica in the titles of his paintings

13
Byinspired, I mean artists directly linking up their art with Guernica in a way that observers can identify and
make the inference. Thus, a direct political message is transmitted by invoking Guernica, linking it up with a
current event.
450 Kopper

condemning the outrageous incident at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq (Peers 2006).viii On all
these occasions, artistsincluding Shafraziare citizens who make political claims by creat-
ing images, where what makes their act powerful is that they link up their condemnation of what
happened in Darfur or in Abu Ghraib with the normative consensus attached to Guernica. This
analogy is an important rhetorical component of the visual act these artists perform.
Finally, the fourth layer of signification is made up of political acts where the image of
Guernica is chosen to voice the message of protest. For example, in Syria, Mahed Zihouri
created paintings for protesters on the streetsome of which paintings he called Syrias
Guernicato demand the Assad regime to stop the civil war (Spencer 2012). Also in
Thailand protesters used Guernica to criticize the brutality of the security forces (Walker
2010). Yet, the most pertinent recent example has been the war on Iraq, when images of
Guernica appeared all around the western world in the hands of citizens condemning the war
in 2003 or after. In New York,ix San Francisco, Madrid, Rome, or London protesters chose to
carry placards with reproductions of Guernica. As far as I know, choosing this picture was not
the outcome of coordination. Nevertheless, even The New Yorker had a montage of Guernica
on the front page of its March 17, 2003 issue. Guernica offered a counter narrative to shock
and awe the name of the infamous military strategy introduced by the USA in the war on Iraq.
Feldman points out that Shock and Awe was not merely a military tactic, but was an exercise
in war as visual culture for the consumption of the television audience (2005, p. 217). What
could better counterpoise this realism of war on the screen than the abstract imagery of
Guernica?x William Bunch of the Philadelphia Daily News in discussing the Shock and
Awe strategy to bomb Iraq made a reference to Picassos Guernica:
CBS News reported late last month that the current Pentagon war plans call for a
"Shock and Awe" bombardment of Baghdad if and when a war in Iraq begins. If the
report is true, the likely war in Iraq could mark a turning point in modern warfare. It
would be the most intense non-nuclear bombing campaign ever - potentially making the
aerial assault depicted in Picasso's "Guernica" look like a Monet watercolor (Bunch
February 26, 2003).
The power of the imagery is stunning. By using Picassos image in a comparison, Bunch
provides a metaphor that touches our emotional nerves, enacting a visual rhetoric that makes
the comparison extremely powerful.
When today an artist applies the image of Guernica anew or protesters make a placard out
of it, a reference is made to what it stands for. Over 70 years ago, Picassos Guernica was
speaking about the Spanish Civil War; representing the war in all the countries it toured in
order to collect support for the republican side. Thus, for example, as requested, in support of
the republican side, visitors took thousands of shoes to Whitechapel in London, where
Guernica was exhibited in 1939 (Martin 2002, p. 138). As time went by, however,
Guernica has been increasingly distanced from the war in Spain and has developed into a
symbol with ever-newer layers of signification attached to it. As a result, now it is a general
symbol against war, protesting against terrorizing innocents and abusing power.

Hailing the audience

Images are worth a thousand words, the saying goes. In this section, I focus on the effect of
images on spectators, how spectators are hailed into subject positions, which they cannot
escape, given the immediacy and emotional effect that a powerful visual rhetoric can trigger. It
will be discussed how and why certain imagesincluding Guernicatap deep into our
Why Guernica became a Globally Used Icon of Political Protest?... 451

emotional and moral veins calling for a categorical moral stance, that is, an unambiguous
normative position resisting relativization.xi
In discussing the rhetorical power of images on the audience, here, the focus is on the visual
properties of images, putting somewhat aside their impact rooted in their documentary capacity. For
example, if we see an image of the mushroom of the atomic bomb explosion over Hiroshima, it has
an enormous effect on us and can trigger strong reactions, although this reaction is not rooted in the
visual qualities of the image but in the horrors on the ground, the suffering of man, women, and
children that we know accompanied the mushroom of the bomb in the sky. Pictures of the nuclear
mushroom were taken from a distance, far from the horrors on the ground, exactly as in case of
images of the Shock and Awe bombing of Iraq, thus the spectator is not confronted with the pain and
suffering the atomic bomb inflicted on humans. Pictures of the mushroom of the atomic bomb
always shock us, but not because of the horrors they depict, but because of the horrors they make us
to remember.
Giesen has made the important observation that the modern cult of the individual is the cult
of victims (Binder quoting Giesen 2012, p. 105). Nevertheless, despite the ease with which
horrors are shown on the TV screen, there is a strong reservation against personifying
victimhood. Elizabeth Dauphine raises serious misgivings about whether there is an ethical
way of circulating such shocking and disturbing photographs as the ones created at Abu
Ghraib, even if the intended message is laudable, that is, the aim is to oppose the War on Terror
(Dauphine 2007, p. 153). Her answer is that she does not think there is such a way. There is
indeed something inherently troublesome about presenting images of suffering people, the
pain of others. Perhaps one of the reasons for the recurrent use of Guernica in contextualizing
events today is that with its abstraction it circumvents this ethical dilemma. It depicts suffering,
it confronts us with horrors but does not personify it.
Discussing visual rhetoric, Blair compares how words and images affect us. When speakers
talk to their audiences, they need good oratorical capacities to captivate the audience, make
it think along and let their message gradually sink in. It is a process unfolding in time where
the audience has the option to walk away, to turn off the TV or radio, or close the window on
the computer screen. Images, however, are more direct and are characterized by immediacy
(Blair 2004, p. 53; Hansen 2011). When spectators looks at an image, the message is right
there in its completeness. It might take a second or two for spectators to recognize what they
see, but the message of the image is indivisible. Whereas in the case of spoken rhetoric, the
message of the argument can be cut up into sub-claims, sentences, and finally words as the
smallest units of the message (Foss 2005, p.149), the image although also divisible in a
sensethus in Guernica, there is the head of the bull, the light bulb, arms, legs, and facesit
is received by spectators all at once. Viewers cannot walk away and escape; their involuntary
reactions are triggered (Blair 2004, p. 53).
Let us look at two more images along Guernica: distant images of Planet Earth and Marc
Ribouds photograph of La Jeune Fille la fleur.xii The choice is arbitrary in the sense that
we could have chosen other images to demonstrate how and why they might touch something
deep in us, offering a rhetoric against divisions of the social universe and calling for spectators
to recognize their shared humanity or common citizenshipin case of members of the same
polity at different sides of the barricades.
Photographs of planet Earth became available once mans rockets reached space. Cosgrove
argues that these pictures radically altered modern mans geographic imagination. Although
representations of Earth in its entirety had existed before, taking the actual birds eye view
photograph of Earth made an enormous difference (Cosgrove 1994, p. 271). Looking at these
photos, humans see themselves as fellow travellers of planet Earth, bound together by their
shared fate.
452 Kopper

In case of Ribouds photograph, we see a line of soldiers with guns in their hands. An
innocent looking girl is standing in front of them, holding a flower and putting it into their
guns. The radical contrast between the innocent and defenseless girl and the line of soldiers in
their uniforms has an overwhelming visual rhetoric discrediting violence.xiii
In case of each of these images, the spectator is captured and hailed into a normative
position, which is categorical in the sense that the messages conveyed are extremely pure and
hard to contest.xiv Each of the images, as Hariman and Luciates point out, touch a sensitive
nerve and the tacit knowledge held by the audience[and they] activate deep structures of
belief that guide social interaction and civic judgment and then apply them to the particular
case (2007, p. 10). If we try to unpack what these two images stand for, it may be argued that
the notion that we are all fellow travellers of Earth moving in space; or the notion that force is
illegitimate against the innocent and defenseless are so clearly reflected by the visual rhetoric
of the pictures that the viewers are captivated and the audience cannot help but become
involved, and in just the way the arguer intends (Blair 2004, p. 54).
Both of these images invoke universals in the sense of rejecting the polarization of the
social universe by differentiating between an in-group and an out-groupthe enemy and
usactivating a Schmittian politics of enmity (Williams 2003, p. 515), where universal
notions such as shared humanity and shared citizenship are overwritten. These images reject
invoking emergency as a justification for breaking ordinary rules and norms, which are
otherwise regarded as having absolute validity.xv If we look at distant images of planet
Earth, we are presented with an image that rejects a Schmittean narrative about enmity and
divisions. They call for the unity of mankind. No wonder depicting the planet in its entirety
was a recurrent motif of posters calling for peace, challenging the securitized era of the Cold
War. Soviet posters in the 1960s to the 1980s attest to this.xvi Claudia Aradau calls for
emancipation via universality in order to desecuritize the migrant, not to see her as the other,
but as an equal member of the community, saying What is first needed is a process of dis-
identification, a rupture from the assigned identity and a partaking of a universal principle.
Thus [] migrants are not migrants but workers with equal rights (Aradau 2004, p. 402). The
message that images of distant Earth invoke is very similar: get disentangled from any
narrative of othering hailing spectators to recognize that foremost they are human beings
and not citizens of this or that state the Soviet Union or the West. In case of Ribouds image,
what we get is a powerful visual rhetoric protesting against the state using force against its
citizens. Its visual rhetoric is against politics of exception where the state could justify using
force by citizens standing on one side of the barricade against citizens standing on the other.
The image of the girls act is so powerful that it was later used at demonstrations similarly to
Guernica, for example, in February 15, 2003 at a London demonstration against the War in Iraq.xvii
The point to make is that, similarly to these two examples, Guernica touches the spectators
deeply, by invoking their ingrained abhorrence against aggression towards defenselessness.
Picassos image is a masterpiece by focusing only on the victims, depicting their suffering
hailing spectators into subject position where they cannot but feel outraged and think that there
can be no reason whatsoever to justify such aggression and cruelty. Picasso does not depict the
aggressors or their bombs; he only alludes to them by the light bulb, which is called bombilla
in Spanish. Through this interpretation, he offers the visual rhetoric that whatever took place in
Guernica can only be seen from the victims perspective.
This normative purity, however, is not always so straightforward in case of images that
recall actual historical events. If we recall Shock and Awe from the previous section, we find
the epitome of discourses, in which it is argued that extreme, sometimes horrific measures, if
viewed from a wider perspective, are actually reasonable and perhaps even justifiable on
humanitarian grounds. Thus, questions over counterfactuals are tied to the narrative about the
Why Guernica became a Globally Used Icon of Political Protest?... 453

horrors of Hiroshima: what would have happened; how long would the war have lasted; how
many more lives would have been lost if the bombs had not been dropped. Discussing the
intricate ethical issues involved here is far beyond the scope of this paper.xviii What I aim to
underline is simply that in case of Guernica there is no such narrative around to allow for the
relativization of the atrocities in Guernica.xix
The three images are also timeless in the sense that although both Guernica and Ribouds
photograph are tied to a specific time and a specific event, the way they depict their topic
disentangles them from time constraints. Even though Picassos painting was made in reflection
to what happened in the Basque town, it is created in an abstract way, without direct reference to the
Spanish Civil War. The painting is non-specific and offers a somewhat archetypical depiction of pain
and suffering. The portrayal of the bull or the screaming face is schematic and abstract. A Spanish
official actually criticized Picasso for this, when the painting was exhibited for the first time,
complaining that Picasso had created a picture without a direct link to the city and to the Civil
War. He believed a picture with a more direct reference would have better promoted the cause of the
Republican side (Segedin 2005). Yet, what the Spanish official was missing 70 years ago helps
observers today to get decentred and decouple the painting from the historical event. Here, it is
interesting to point out that initially Picasso planned to relate the image more directly to the Spanish
Civil War. As his sketches reveal, he initially planned to draw a boldly raised arm and clenched fist,
the familiar salute of the Republican forces. However, later he completely painted over the fist, and
the final image has no direct references left to the Civil War, although today probably few outside
Spain would recognize the clenched fist as a direct Republican symbol.xx
Ribouds image of the girl with the flower is similarly timeless. It is not tied to a particular event
and its message gets through regardless of whether one knows that it was created in Washington at a
protest against the Vietnam War on 21 October, 1967. Although Ribouds picture has this quality of
being unbound in time and space, many iconic photographs tend to be closely associated with a
specific historical event. There is a considerable difference in this respect between photographs and
paintings/drawings (although there are some exceptions like Ribouds image). Photographic images
are shocking, providing the feeling that the observer is witnessing horrors. This, nevertheless, has the
effect that photographs usually get outdated, turn into our fathers concerns, a memento of the
vanished past (Sontag 2003, p. 24). Detlef Hoffman argues that although photography is great in
capturing the momentits tragedies and celebrationspaintings are more appropriate for depicting
past events and making them vivid and alive (Gussow 2001). Although the events of the Spanish
Civil War are long gone, Guernica has not turned into a relic of the past, neither as a memento of an
event long gone, nor as a piece of art hung in a museum. Guernica is alive, always actualized when
citizens make political statements and use it to perform visual acts.

Conclusion

The aim of the present article has been to contribute to debates on how citizens act by using images.
In order to do this, it examined how images speak and what gives certain images the ability to offer
a powerful rhetoric. Picassos Guernica was discussed in detail, an image that artists and citizens in
the West, as well as in China, Thailand, Syria, Palestine, and Japan often make use of in order to
make political statements. These examples attest to the fact that Guernica has the power to
communicate messages across cultures all around the globe. For example, Chinese students used
it in Beijing to protest in front of the US Embassy against the bombing of Chinas Embassy in
Belgrade, in 1999 during the bombing campaign against Yugoslavia (Eckholm, 1999).
After discussing the peculiarities of visual rhetoric by reflecting on the polysemy of images
and elucidating how their meaning is rooted in an intertextual and intervisual universe, two
454 Kopper

arguments were put forward. First, I argued that as artists and protesters repeatedly use
Guernica to express their political discontent, Guernica is reinforced as a political icon, with
its meaning increasingly crystallized. By linking up otherwise distinct events, Guernica
attaches an aura of universality to the claims made by citizens, voicing their outrage at a
particular moment, buttressing them by the analogy with what happened in Guernica during
the Spanish Civil War, and also any time later when Guernica was invoked to interpret events.
Thus, for instance, by spraying on its canvas condemning the Vietnam War, Shafrazi actualized
the condemnation of what had taken place in Guernica, by making it refer to Vietnam. For an
observer who remembers Shafrazis contribution to Guernicas history, the image of
Guernica at a protest against the War in Iraq calls for an analogy not only between Guernica
and Iraq but also between Iraq and Vietnam, creating a grand narrative for global civic
discourses, as Binder pointed out (Binder 2012)
Secondly, the reception and recurrent use of images was discussed: How images capture
their spectators with their visual rhetoric and, put across their message by tapping deep into the
emotions and ethical veins of their spectators. Besides Guernica, two other images were
studied: photographs of Planet Earth from the distance and Ribouds photograph with girl with
a flower. I suggested that there is a level of purity and unambiguity in these images, offering a
strong rhetoric against Schmittean divisions of the social universe. I have argued that
Guernicajust like these other two imagesattests to the universal validity of certain
normative precepts, by invoking our abhorrence of horrors inflicted upon defenseless victims.
Further, I argued that the abstract depiction of Guernicas image, without a direct link to the
historical event, helps the spectators get decentred and decouple the image from what actually
took place in Guernica, which enabled it to become a powerful icon of modernity used by
citizenseither in their ateliers or in the streetsfor making political claims.

Notes

i. There is much truth in this in case of documentary photographs, images made for
advertisements or posters (Crinall 2009, p. 15).
ii. It is also reasonable to argue that images may simplify political messages and by their
rhetoric appealing to emotions may vulgarize messages. Writing on political rhetoric,
Finlayson however underlines the importance of reducing political messages to simple
propositions in order to give them a general appeal (Finlayson 2004, p. 537). Arguably, by
capturing the essence of a political message, highly condensed visual images can play a
similar role.
iii. See: Barthes 1978; Benjamin 2003. To some extent, this position is also shared by Vuori
(2010) and Campbell (2004).
iv. See Nadia Plesners homepage at: http://www.nadiaplesner.com/2010 (CHECKED 05.26.
2012.)
v. http://www.lazinc.com/mailing-list/mailout/282,new-print-ron-english-grade-school-
guernica
vi. See at: Francis M. Naumann Fine Arts homepage on exhibition: http://www.
francisnaumann.com/sophie/sophieguernica.html(CHECKED 05.26.2012.)
vii. International Cartoon Exhibit Opens at UN In 'Cartoon Art for World Peace'
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=382108&rel_no=1
(CHECKED 04.21.2011.)
viii. The blog: http://gernika37.blogspot.jp/has a wide collection of Guernica-inspired im-
ages.
Why Guernica became a Globally Used Icon of Political Protest?... 455

Also Yusuf Arakkals: Gujarnica is interesting to look at in The Hindu, 2003 October
9th: http://www.hindu.com/mp/2003/10/09/stories/2003100900620300.htm
ix. News about the protests can be found, in turn: San Francisco (March 31, 2006): Screwing
the TroopsAgain (accessed: June 11, 2012): http://generik.blogspot.jp/2006_03_01_
archive.html
Madrid (February 14, 2003): GUERNICA AGAINST THE WAR (accessed: June 11,
2012):
http://www.billwolf.org/01294.htm Rome (February 15, 2003): Massive Crowd
Floods Rome in Peace Protest (accessed: June 11, 2012):
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0215-10.htm
New York (February 2003): Making Art Out of Doors: A Conversation with Gregory
Sholette, by Nicolas Lampert, (accessed: June 11, 2012): http://machineanimalcollages.
com/Pages/Words/GregSholetteInt.html
Canada (February 2003), New York (March 2004), (April 2003); London (2003):
GERNIKA, (accessed: June 11, 2012): http://gernika37.blogspot.jp/2006_07_01_archive.
html
also Berlin (2003), Greece (2003): http://gernika37.blogspot.jp/search/label/Fotografia
x. The reality of these television images about the bombing of Iraq is much like a video game,
showing so distant images that the human aspect of warsuffering and paingets
completely neutralized (Grossman 2009, p. 160)
xi. For a brief summary on hailing and Althusserian interpellation apropos of images see
Crinall (2009, p. 16); and on being interpellated as part of the public see Warner (2002).
xii. See, for example, at: http://marcriboud.canalblog.com/ (visited: 13.07.2013.)
xiii. The famous photograph of a man in front of a tank at Tiananmen Square has a similar effect on
the spectator. On this image and acts of citizenship, see: Hsu (2008) and Huysmans (2011).
xiv. This being said, we must recognize that moral precepts are culturally and
historically contingent. What is unacceptable for modern man was normal over
100 years ago. When one could say that nine out of every ten (cases) the only
good Indians are the dead Indians (quoted in Beier 2007, p. 256) and images of
lynching at Wounded Knee were turned into postcards sent to family and friends
(Beier 2007, p.263) radically different norms and values prevailed. The fact that
today Abu Ghraib photographs provoke general moral outrage it reveals that
perhaps there is some progress indeed.
xv. On emergency, see (Buzan et al. 1998, p. 24).
xvi. Such posters can be seen, for example, at: http://www.allworldwars.com/Soviet-Anti-
War-Posters.html (checked 07.27.2012)
xvii. See: http://www.inminds.co.uk/palestine-rally-15feb03.html.
xviii. For this, see (Walzer 1977)
xix. This being said, it is interesting to recall that at the time of the actual attack, such a narrative to
relativize the crime of bombing Guernica was not inconceivable. Southworth points out that
the military objective was to break the spirit of Basque resistance and prepare for a siege on
Bilbao. The siege itself was regarded extremely risky and costly in terms of human sacrifice.
Bilbao has been called the city of sieges, beleaguered four times unsuccessfully in the previous
100 years. At the time, reports by English language papers reflected also on this aspect of the
attack. The Evening Standard of May 4, 1937 had its article under the title: Bilbao has never
Fallen, pointing out that Sixty-seven years ago this week was raised the siege of Bilbao in the
Second Carlist War. The Siege lasted 125 days; there was hardly a house left standing; the
citizens suffered terrible deprivations. (Southworth 1977, quoting The Evening Standard:
385), this, narrative, however did not become part of the story of Guernica.
456 Kopper

xx. PBS, Treasures of the World, at: http://www.pbs.org/treasuresoftheworld/a_nav/

guernica_nav/gnav_level_1/2process_guerfrm.html (visited on: 01.11.2013.)

Acknowledgment The author would like to thank Heikki Patomaki, va Ozsvald, Eszter Timr, Izumo
Masashi, Hiromi Morishita, Annette Freyberg-Inan, Torsak Janpian, members of PERIPATO Research Group
and anonymous reviewers of the journal for the advice and comments they offered at various stages of writing
this article. The author would also like to thank the generous support offered by a postdoctoral grant by the
Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (Kakenhi Grant Number: 23-01794). Any errors or omissions are
the responsibility of the author alone.

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Akos Kopper is a senior lecturer at ELTE University Department of European Studies, Budapest and researcher
at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He works on topics of citizenship, civil society and the role visuals play
in politics. His recent works appeared, among other, in the journal: International Political Sociology, Journal of
Civil Society and the Journal of International Relations and Development.