Understanding European Avant-Garde Movements and Spanish Vanguards
European Avant-Garde Movements
Futurism
Exaltation of speed, sport, technique, and strength. Using onomatopoeia.
Dadaism
Typographical innovations: the innocence, excitement, and primitivism. Cultivating a phonetic poetry, absurd and provocative.
Surrealism
Art born in the liberated unconscious, free of reason and morality. Inspiration from dreamlike states and automatic writing.
The Generation of ’27
This group of poets published their first works between 1920 and 1930. They came from liberal bourgeois families and had a solid literary background; some were professors of literature. Their common aesthetic attitude sought a synthesis between tradition and the avant-garde.
Their poems deal with universal themes, using established metric schemes. They were influenced by ultraism, creationism, and surrealism. During the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera and the Second Republic, they maintained a joint movement. The Civil War, the murder of García Lorca, and the exile of some members led to the group’s dispersion.
Vanguards: A Definition
The word refers to a set of avant-garde artistic and literary movements that developed in Europe and America during the first third of the 20th century. The common denominator of the avant-garde is a break not only with prior art and literature but with all occidental aesthetic tradition. These movements arose from a climate of unease.
Characteristics of Vanguards
- Anti-realism: The creators of the forefront break with the idea of art and literature as imitation of the outside world.
- Primitivism: There is a myth of the primitive man, before culture and civilization.
- Irrationalism: The avant-garde shared the rejection of reason and science as pillars of progress. They advocated the irrational, based on chance and the unconscious.
- Originality: The authors sought to establish a new cutting-edge art for a new time.
Vanguards in Spain
The initiator of the vanguards in Spain was Ramón Gómez de la Serna, creator of greguerías.
Ultraism
Influence of futurism, visual arrangement of words, original metaphors, deletion of punctuation.
Creationism
Hispanic origin, creating a new reality with words.
Neopopularismo and Pure Poetry
The poetry of the Generation of ’27 presents two basic lines of development: neopopularismo and pure poetry.
Neopopularismo
The incorporation of resources and metric forms of popular Spanish poetry.
Principal Works
- Gypsy Ballads, by Federico García Lorca. The Guardia Civil oppose the Gypsies.
- Marinero en tierra, by Rafael Alberti. The contraposition is between the sea and the city.
Pure Poetry
- The voice properly and reasonably you love, by Pedro Salinas, through love. The poetic discovers your essentials, from the beloved.
- Canticle, by Jorge Guillén, the poet joyfully celebrates the reality and the fullness of the moment.
Influence of Surrealism
Since 1929, some poets of the Generation of ’27 were influenced by surrealism. This involved the exploration of the subconscious and irrational dimensions of the human being and a challenge to established moral propaganda. In the poets of the ’27, it is manifested through inner conflicts and rebellion.
Characteristics
- The reality and desire, by Luis Cernuda. Love gives meaning to their existence; the desire for erotic fulfillment collides with an aggressive reality.
- About angels, by Rafael Alberti. The angels represent the uncertainties and anxieties of authorship.
- Poet in New York, by Federico García Lorca. New York is represented as the dehumanization of the modern world.
- The destruction or love and swords as lips, by Vicente Aleixandre. Merging with the beloved, the lover goes out of himself and agrees to a full life in contact with the cosmos.