# Art Propaganda –The Many Lives of Picasso_s Guernica **Keywords:** Art Propaganda, Propaganda, Epistemic Merit Model, Guernica, Picasso. Resumo Guernica é reconhecida quase universalmente como uma propaganda anti-bélica, e sua existência questiona concepções tradicionais de que a arte propriamente dita não possa ser uma propaganda. A visão da arte como excluindo a propaganda admite diversos graus, passando de sua articulação mais forte por Clive Bell, que mantém que a arte e a política são mutualmente excludentes, até Monroe Beardsley e R. W. Collingwood, que m **Abstract:** Guernica is almost universally recognized as anti-war propaganda, and its existence challenges long-standing views that art, properly speaking cannot be propaganda. The anti-art propaganda claim admits of varying degrees from its strongest articulation by Clive Bell who maintains that art and politics are mutually exclusive to Monroe Beardsley and R. W. Collingwood who maintain that propaganda is at best amusement art or that in so far as art is propaganda it gets in the way of its aesthetic value. This paper will argue that not only is Guernica a paradigm case of art propaganda, but that the epistemic merit model of propaganda can best account for the variety of propagandistic uses of this painting from its inception extending to modern day, in the contexts of the Spanish Civil War, Spain’s transition to democracy, and most recently in the buildup to the Iraq War. **Authors:** [[Sheryl Tuttle Ross]]