This month marks the anniversary of one of the many atrocities of the last century carried out in the cause of nationalism. On Monday, April 26, 1937, less than a year after dissident Spanish generals launched a coup d'état against a democratically elected coalition government, German and Italian airplanes bombed Gernika, in the Basque Country of Spain.
Within a week, Pablo Picasso commenced the mural-sized painting-- Guernica, using the Spanish rendering of the Basque town's name -- that now stands as the exemplar among artists' public opposition to war.
