Spanish Avant-Garde Movement: History, Phases and Key Artists

The Evolution of the Spanish Avant-Garde

In Spain, the development of the European avant-garde was a cultural phenomenon that coincided in time with Novecentismo and the Generation of '27. The avant-garde movement went through the following stages:

1. Reception (1910–1917)

During this period, avant-garde ideas from Europe became fashionable in the country. The most representative author was Ramón Gómez de la Serna, a writer who translated the Futurist Manifesto. His provocative and rebellious attitude, along with his love for magazines and literary gatherings, helped to create an environment conducive to the European “isms.” He invented the genre of the greguería, which consists of developing a surprising and humorous metaphor, such as: “gulls are born from the handkerchiefs waving goodbye in ports.”

2. Rise of the Hispanic Avant-Gardes (1918–1927)

In 1919, Ultraism emerged. This cutting-edge movement exalts inventions, a mechanized society, visual poems, and the free association of words. The second major movement in the Spanish language was Creationism, an “ism” developed by the Chilean poet Vicente Huidobro. Creationism is not intended to mimic the reality we know, but to create a whole new reality. Creationist poems are full of metaphors, and words lose their usual meaning; they do not relate to known objects, people, feelings, or views, but to those invented by the poet.

3. Spanish Surrealism (1928–1931)

This was the latest movement and represented a rehumanization of art. Spanish Surrealism differed from the French movement because Spanish writers did not practice automatic writing, allowing their works to retain some logical and thematic coherence. Major Surrealists belonged to the Generation of '27, including:

• Rafael Alberti, author of Concerning the Angels
• Federico García Lorca, author of Poet in New York
• Luis Cernuda, author of A River, a Love
• Vicente Aleixandre, one of the poets most faithful to Surrealism and author of Destruction or Love, who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1977

In addition to founding the magazine Prometeo, Ramón Gómez de la Serna was a regular at literary gatherings (tertulias) such as those at Café Pombo. This gathering was captured in a painting by the artist José Gutiérrez Solana. Meanwhile, Surrealism, represented by artists like Salvador Dalí (creator of The Invisible Man), reflects the world through symbols of dreams and the subconscious.

4. Decline and Politicization (1931 Onward)

From the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic in 1931, the avant-garde fell into decay. The profound sociopolitical problems and challenges that arose in the country with the regime change, followed by the Civil War, geared literature toward realism and political commitment. Pablo Picasso's Guernica symbolizes how avant-garde art left behind its purely recreational nature to engage with the reality of its time, in this case, denouncing the horror of war. (Guernica, Pablo Picasso).