Picasso - self-indulgent genius, the artist for whom the condition of modern art was to separate itself from politics and history. But the brutality of the Luftwaffe when it bombs the ancient Basque town of Guernica makes cubism's own little wrecking action seem trivial. What is the breaking of figurative art beside the breaking of bodies and the burning of homes? Picasso, anguished about the fate of his country, wants to do what was assumed could never be done - make a modern history painting.