Avant-Garde Art & Literature: Movements & Characteristics

Understanding Avant-Garde Movements

The term avant-garde refers to a set of innovative 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 the entire Western aesthetic tradition.

The avant-garde emerged in a climate of widespread dissatisfaction with the present, which worsened after the atrocities of the First World War.

Common Characteristics

Avant-garde movements share several characteristics:

• Anti-realism: Stemming from their disagreement with reality, avant-garde authors broke with the idea of art and literature as an imitation of the exterior world.
• Primitivism: Challenging the West's concept of historical evolution, a myth of the primitive human emerged. Creators drew inspiration from popular traditions or folk artistic demonstrations.
• Irrationalism: The avant-garde shared the late 19th century's rejection of reason and science as pillars of progress. They advocated for an irrational art, based on chance and the unconscious.
• Desire for Originality: This led authors to seek the establishment of a new art for a new era.

Key European Avant-Garde Movements

The main movements defining European avant-garde literature include Futurism, Dadaism, and Surrealism.

Futurism

Its basic feature is the exaltation of speed, technology, sport, and strength. Futurist texts are characterized by the use of onomatopoeia and nonverbal cues, as well as by typographical innovations. A key figure was Filippo Marinetti.

Dadaism

The name of the Dada movement, seemingly mimicking baby talk, suggests a return to an original state of innocence associated with the characteristic primitivism of the avant-garde. Dadaist authors cultivated phonetic poetry, and their works possess a deliberately absurd and provocative character. A leading figure was Tristan Tzara.

Surrealism

Surrealism advocated for the liberation of humanity from the tyranny of reason and morality through art and literature born directly from the unconscious. Writers were inspired by dreams and practiced automatic writing, resulting in texts uncontrolled by conscious, rational thought, often reflecting a dreamlike state. The primary proponent was André Breton.

Avant-Garde Innovations in Spain

The initiator of avant-garde art in Spain was Ramón Gómez de la Serna, creator of the greguerías.

Greguerías

The greguerías are brief and ingenious statements featuring:

• Unique use of imagery and other stylistic resources like personification or wordplay.
• A sense of humor.

Ultraism

Ultraism is a specific avant-garde movement within Spanish poetry. Ultraist poems avoid the direct expression of feelings and possess a cheerful tone, close to the greguerías of Ramón Gómez de la Serna. Its characteristics include:

• Influence of Futurism.
• Importance placed on the visual arrangement of words.
• Use of original metaphors.
• Suppression of punctuation marks.

Principal figures were Guillermo de Torre, Rafael Cansinos-Assens, and Gerardo Diego.