Pablo Picasso’s 'Guernica' (1937) is one of the most powerful anti-war paintings in history. It was created in response to the bombing of the Basque town of Guernica by Nazi and Fascist Italian planes during the Spanish Civil War. The painting is monumental in size, standing at over 11 feet tall and 25 feet wide. Picasso chose a monochromatic palette of grey, black, and white to mimic the starkness of newspaper photography and to emphasize the grim reality of the violence. The composition is filled with symbolic figures: a gored horse, a screaming mother holding a dead child, and a bull, which Picasso often used as a symbol for Spain or brutality. The painting toured the world to raise awareness and funds for the Spanish Republican cause, eventually returning to Spain in 1981 after the restoration of democracy.