Picasso and Columbus: What Do They Have In Common?
Pablo Picasso and Christopher Columbus -- two household names in all four corners of the world. One is a twentieth-century Spanish artist whose painting, La Guernica, stands as a universal condemnation of war atrocities. The other an Italian explorer, credited for discovering the New World in 1492. Discussing these two men here seems to do justice to neither one of them. What would Picasso, widely admired for his artistic talents, have anything to do with Columbus, a controversial figure lauded or despised for his actions? Despite their differences, these two European men share something in common: Their hubris, that is, their conviction that what they did represented humanity, and their neglect of people that do not belong to the same race. Prominently featured in Picasso's painting La Guernica is the killing of innocent women and children in wars. Despair, suffering, and death fill the gray, black, and white canvas, which shows a screaming woman in front of a house on fire, anoth