Picasso began with La Guerre. A hearse drawn by war horses, caparisoned and harnessed, is driven by a horned being armed with a bloody cutlass. On his back, he carries a kind of hood, piled high with human skulls. Other figures appear as shadow puppets in the central background. Their attitude is menacing, like that of the first figure. The three horses pulling the unstable, chaotic catafalque trample an open book with their feet, finishing the work of destruction that the flames, which are devouring it, have begun to do.
The book, here trampled, evokes the bias of any dictatorship against culture, generally considered dangerous and subversive. On the same plane, two painted hands appear in a kind of black hole. They may echo those found on the walls of certain prehistoric caves, notably Lascaux, discovered only a few years ago. In stark contrast to the violent colors surrounding the sinister carriage. the blue background where the peace fighter appears, is calm and soothing, like the latter.
Naked, equipped with a spear that supports the scales of justice, he protects himself with a simple shield on which the artist has drawn a dove, a well-known symbol of peace. The man seems to fearlessly confront the figures of savagery rushing towards him.
On the white shield, as if watermarked behind the dove, a portrait emerges, one of serene beauty too. It's that of the artist's companion, Françoise Gilot. On the opposite side of the room, at virtually the same height, a rounded, white dish reveals strange black shapes, with pincers or prickles. They could evoke the research then being carried out by the great powers to acquire bacteriological weapons.
