Avant-Garde Movements: A History of Artistic Innovation

Avant-Garde: A European Artistic Revolution

The Avant-garde is a European artistic movement that emerged after 1910, characterized by several distinct manifestations. It represents a definitive break with previous traditions—such as realism, naturalism, and symbolism—in an attempt to create new artistic and literary forms.

Core Features

• Rupture of the principle of imitation
• Art as play
• Dehumanization
• Total art

General Characteristics

The vanguards are characterized by a desire for total renovation and a break with all previous creative principles. In Spain, this movement was represented by figures such as Ramón Gómez de la Serna, Guillermo de Torre, and Juan Larrea.

Key Movements

Futurism

Emerging in 1910, this was the first avant-garde movement, led by Marinetti (1879-1942). Its style includes pictorial presentation, exclamations, the use of movement, metaphors, free word combinations, and syntactic disorder.

Cubism

Cubism breaks away from traditional perspective and introduces multiple perspectives. It intends to reflect reality through the simultaneity of significant geometric shapes.

Dadaism

Dadaism is defined by the publication of manifestos and provocative events. Dadaists challenged conventions, aiming to break with bourgeois culture, art, and morality.

Surrealism

Born in France after World War I, Surrealism proposes exploring the deeper layers of consciousness and the dream world. It seeks to understand the individual, free from moral and social conventions, by converting the unconscious into artistic content.

Pure Poetry

This movement removes melancholic sentimentalism and the author's personal history. It seeks musicality and focuses on the celebration of the universe.

Neopopularismo

This style involves the imitation of folk songs and romances from the 15th and 16th centuries. Poets of the '27 generation valued these poems as a form of pure poetry, characterized by expressive simplicity and irrational images.

The Generation of '27

The Generation of '27 refers to a group of poets who, between 1923 and 1936, produced a profound renewal of poetic language. They achieved this by eliminating modernist sentimentality and fusing traditional poetry with avant-garde innovations.

Members of this generation include: Jorge Guillén, Pedro Salinas, Dámaso Alonso, Gerardo Diego, Federico García Lorca, Rafael Alberti, Luis Cernuda, Vicente Aleixandre, and Miguel Hernández. The poetry of the '27 is notably dehumanized.