Dream and Lies of Franco

Dream and Lies of Franco


I encountered this political artwork of Picasso in Reyna Sofia Museum in Madrid last March. Compared to his other works, this one made me smile. It has a powerful anti-Franco sentiment put in a satirical manner.

Franco lived a life of lies, of make believe, of great power, greater than the King of Spain. This foolish dream caused so much sufferings among the Spanish people especially the senseless deaths of hundreds of civilians in the Guernica bombing courtesy of his Nazi partner Adolf Hitler.

In the local context, I saw how the Marcoses dreamt and amassed so much power and lived a la royalties with their self-proclaimed Maharlika bloodline. The supposed queen is from Leyte and the powerful king, from Ilocos. They came from Philippines poor provinces. Dream on!

It was because of this royal illusion that brought twenty years of conjugal dictatorship in the Philippines, the darkest period in the history of Philippine democracy.

We have our own version of Franco or Marcos in varying degrees. It’s never wrong to dream. To some of us, what we have become is because of our never-ending pursuit to make our dreams a reality at all cost, no matter what. But we must not forget that a realized dream never guaranty true happiness. It’s only when our conscience is clear and when we have not violated another ones rights make a Franco or a Marcos in us real happy!


Picasso: El Guernica
Libro desplegable

Publicado en 2003 por Scala Publishers Ltd,
Gloucester Mansions 140ª Shafesbury Avenue
Londres WC2H 8HD

One month after Franco's troops were besieging Madrid, Picasso created the series Dream and Lies of Franco. This poem in prose of unconnected words and violent language expresses his refusal before Franco's actions. The title of the work, accuses Franco of chasing a dream instead of the reality and of living through a lie and not the truth. The poem was accompanied by an engraving of 18 panels which are interwoven by different monstrous images of Franco. To contemplate, these panels turn out to be immensely a developer, since the motives, now already well-known (such as the bullfight, the woman's head crying, and the mother with the dead son) they acquire new political meanings that replace those that associate with the personal traumas of Picasso. Thus the stage is prepared for the role it more defied up to the moment – of transmitting the tragedy of Guernica.

In the engraving, Dream and lies of Franco was displayed on the contrary. Franco was shown with a sword in hand and with the head covered inappropriately by a crown and a mantilla, already before the fifth panel (that appears to the left side). In him, Franco's strange and monstrous figure loses the crown and the sword on having been attacked by a bull.

The series begins with the image of the sun smiling mockingly at Franco. He sat precariously on an old horse that is spoiled by simple expression. But on the last panel, the satire has turned into frightfulness. The arms of the woman at the centre are waved violently and an arrow crosses her neck. The head was turned up, in a position that he reminds to that of the woman with the dead child in the Guernica.