The Palette and the Flame: Posters of the Spanish Civil War ed. by John Tisa (review)

340 Books The Palette and the Flame: Postersofthe Spanish Civil War. John Tisa, ed. International Publishers, New York, 1979. 162 pp., illus. $17.50. Reviewed by John Adkins Richardson* It has not been one year past that I chanced to read in the Letters column of a major newspaper in the U.S.A. someone's claim that the Basque inhabitants of Guernica were responsible for the destruction of their village on 26 April 1937. After 43 years the 'Right' still mouths the 'official' explanation. Even in 1937 it was difficult for the Spanish Nationalists who proclaimed (against the direct testimony of local priests, the mayor, the British Consul and foreign correspondents) that the devastation was not caused by German Heinkel, Junker and Messerschmitt aircraft but by the Basques themselves. I supposed that this bizarre claim had been nullified, at least by 1970 when Spanish government documents were made available proving that Guernica was destroyed by aerial bombardment. I go into all of this because, when one finds the 'Right' reclaiming outworn explanations of the past, it is easy to understand the continuing devotion of those who were enlisted on the side of the Loyalists in the Spanish Civil War. And it is easier still to sympathize with their dedication to a cause as fascist zeal springs up anew on the Earth. Those whose comments are included in this book were all young in 1937 and participated in the War. Luigi Longo, a prominent Italian Communist who authored the Foreword, was Commissar General of the International Brigades. Editor Tisa and critic Anthony Toney were both members of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Like others, they were drawn to the conflict by political conviction and, probably, by what Hugh Thomas characterized as 'a longing for action widely felt among the young for whom a civil war seemed, unlike the war of 1914-18, just'. Like other 'premature antifascists' (as they were known to officialdom in the U.S.A. during World War II), they received the gratitude of their governments in the form of exclusion, persecution and calumny. Still, they have endured, evidently with unswerving devotion to the ideals of their youth. Toney is a professional artist and educator whose critical commentary on this collection of Loyalist posters is the substance of the text. His analysis of his apparent favorite among the posters combines intellectual integrity, political orthodoxy and formal rigor. This particular poster is by Oliver and is captioned 'La Garra del invasor Italiano' ('The Claw of the Italian Invader'). An enormous stylized hand digs its fingers into the soil of a cookie-cutout of the Iberian peninsula. It is a right hand, naturally. 'Within the hand and subordinate to it, but enriching it, are the repeated lines of troops marching within the superimposed stripes of the Italian flag', Toney writes. 'Overtly the grasping hand of fascist Italy is reaching for Spain. This direct meaning is enriched as the clutching fingers echo with grasping associations of violence, greed, anger, etc.' That gives you some idea of the style. Toney's discussion of this poster is by no means confined to a consideration of its structural organization . On the contrary, he is at pains to save a place in the artistic process for each clearly communicative style-for Romanticism, Classicism and Realism-for these posters are, he says, as alive today 'as in the time of the Spanish Republic's defense'. Certainly, there is a good deal in what Toney says about the pertinence of such imagery for the present time. On the other hand, noncommunists will find some of his enthusiams rather chilling. For example, the five lithographs of Puyol are satirical cartoons caricaturing various enemies of the people's cause, but along with conventional villains, such as hoarders and agent provocateurs, Puyol pillories pessimists. Beneath his vignetted caricature of an anxiety-ridden neurotic the caption says: 'War without quarter on the pessimist! His weapons are used to discourage the antifascist people!' This is one of the posters issued by International Red Aid. From the Communist Party itself came Renau's powerful image in which an outthrust fist clenched tight at the end of a red-starred sleeve jabs forth along...