Picasso's Guernica battle lives on

Time to Basque in glory? ... the Reina Sofia museum refuses to allow Picasso's Guernica to be moved. Photograph: Pedro Armestre/AFP.

Did Picasso really care about nationalism in the Basque country? It's not the first question that comes to mind when confronted by the scenes of horror and torment in Picasso's Guernica.

The painting, hanging in Madrid's Reina Sofia museum, elicits disgust at the horrors of war. It doesn't deal much with the specifics of the small Basque town of Gernika (Basque spelling) that suffered a devastating air attack by German and Italian fighter planes backing General Franco during the Spanish civil war.

On the 70th anniversary of the bombing I couldn't help wondering what Picasso would think of the Basque nationalists' persistent demands to move the painting to what they consider its rightful home. To many Basques, it has become not just a universal anti-war symbol, but a rallying point to defy Madrid and exalt its proud-though-victimised past. But curators in Madrid won't agree to the work going on loan, claiming it is too fragile after decades of trotting around the globe.

Now officials have renewed calls for the painting to be displayed in the region. The director of the Guggenheim in Bilbao has requested that experts study whether a transfer would be as damaging as curators say. Sympathies for the move are high as the country honours the 1,600 civilians killed and the event is commemorated around the world, notably in Germany. As Spaniards are confronting their past and recognising the forgotten victims of Franco, surely a symbolic loan of the painting could easily fit the wound-healing trend?

So why not just let the Basques have the painting? The Reina Sofia is clearly placing conservation and art over historical or political symbolism. But wasn't Guernica, commissioned by the Spanish Republic, always about symbolism? It is not clear. It has many of Picasso's usual icons such as the bull and the weeping women but the artist supposedly started it before the bombing itself, then added the title after reading about it in his Paris studio.

Then again, the painting travelled around the world raising awareness of the republicans' plight - you don't get much more symbolic than that. Picasso himself ensured that it would be forever seen as a symbol of democratic Spain by making the country that housed it an issue - he wouldn't allow it to touch Spanish soil until the return of democracy. But what would Picasso have made of the nationalist aspirations of the Basques today?