Early 20th Century Avant-Garde Art and Literature

The Avant-Garde Movements in Art and Literature

The word avant-garde refers to a set of artistic and literary movements that took place in Europe and America during the first third of the twentieth century. The common denominator of the avant-garde is a break not only with the prior art and literature but with all of the Western aesthetic tradition. The avant-garde emerged in a climate of dissatisfaction with the present at all levels (political, social, economic, artistic...), which became acute after the atrocities of the First World War.

Although the various avant-garde movements have specific traits, they share some characteristics:

• Antirealism. As a result of their disagreement with reality, the authors break with the idea of art and literature as an imitation of the outside world.
• Primitivism. The discontent and the historical evolution of the West produced a myth of primitive man, before culture and civilization. Designers took their inspiration from the folk tradition or the arts of primitive cultures.
• Irrationalism. Vanguards shared the end of the century's rejection of reason and science as pillars of progress. They advocate for an irrational art, based on chance and the unconscious.
• Thirst for originality. The authors seek to establish a cutting-edge new art for a new time.

Avant-Garde Movements in Europe

The major avant-garde movements affecting European literature are Futurism, Dadaism, and Surrealism.

Futurism: Its basic feature is exaltation.

Avant-Garde Movements in Spain

The initiator of the avant-garde in Spain was Ramón Gómez de la Serna, creator of the greguerías. The greguerías are brief and resourceful statements. Their features are:

• Use of unusual metaphors and other stylistic devices such as personifications or puns.
• Sense of humor.

Ultraism is a specific art movement of poetry in Castilian. The Ultraist poems avoid the direct expression of feelings and are generally of a cheerful tone, close to the greguerías of Ramón Gómez de la Serna. The following characteristics:

• Influence of Futurism.
• Importance of the visual arrangement of words.
• Use of original metaphors.
• Removal of punctuation.

The major growers of Ultraist poetry were Guillermo de Torre, Rafael Cansinos Assens, and Gerardo Diego.