Guernica (Picasso) in political commitment and faulted it for not offering a vision of a better future. In contrast, Morgado's painting was a great success with Spanish Communists and with the public. The art critic Clement Greenberg was also critical of "Guernica", but for different reasons. In a later essay, Greenberg termed "Guernica" "jerky" and "too compressed for its size", and compared it unfavorably to the "magnificently lyrical" "The Charnel House" (1944–48), a later antiwar painting by Picasso. Among the painting's admirers were the art critic Jean Cassou and the poet José Bergamín, both of whom praised the painting as quintessentially Spanish.
Guernica (Picasso) of preliminary studies, the so-called primary project, that show an atelier installation incorporating the central triangular shape which reappears in the final version of "Guernica", Becht-Jördens and Wehmeier interpret the painting as a self-referential composition in the tradition of atelier paintings such as "Las Meninas" by Diego Velázquez. In his "chef d'oeuvre", Picasso seems to be trying to define his role and his power as an artist in the face of political power and violence. But far from being a mere political painting, "Guernica" should be seen as Picasso's comment on what art can actually contribute towards the self-assertion that