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The Spanish Civil War is now famous for the number of well known artists who were either caught up in the fighting, or went to Spain as volunteers or reporters.
This book picks out a series of key events of the war, and examines the impact these events had on some of the artists caught up in them. These experiences range from those of victims of the war, like the poet Lorca, journalists, and artist volunteers fighting on both sides (but mostly with the Republics).
We start at the outbreak of the war, and follow events through to the nationalist breakthrough on the Ebro that really decided its result.
The predominant impression one gets is of the chaos on the Government side, as Communist, Socialist, Anarchist and Republic factions fought for control with nearly as much enthusiasm as they fought Franco.
The artists are an interesting group, including famous writers, most notably Hemingway and Orwell, Spanish artists caught up the fighting (amongst them Picasso and Dali), and less well known painters and writers who became heavily involved with the volunteer brigades.
This is an interesting approach to the Spanish Civil War, effectively mixing sections on the fighting with sections on the artists and how they and their work were affected by the war.
Chapters
1 Granada: The Death of a Poet: Federico García Lorca
2 Seville: The Antagonists: Koestler and Queipo de Llano
3 Toledo: The Propaganda War: Luis Quintanilla and Felicia Browne
4 Estramadura: The Other Side of the Line: Roy Campbell, Peter Kemp and Frank Thomas
5 Aragón: The Death of Another Poet: John Cornfield
6 Madrid: The Schoolboy who Lived to Tell the Tale: Esmond Romilly
7 Malaga: The Prisoners: Koestler and Sir Peter Chalmers Mitchell
8 Jarama: The Journalists: Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn
9 Barcelona: The Committed: Orwell and Eileen Blair
10 Guernika: The Artists: Picasso and Dora Maar
11 Teruel: The Turning Point: The Fifteenth Brigade
12 The Ebro: The Tragedy: Men Against Machines
Epilogue
Appendices
Glossary
Author: Steve Hurst
Edition: Hardcover
Pages: 240
Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
Year: 2009