Introduction

Much of the success of avant-garde artists has to do with the people with whom they were connected. The individuals who composed the circle of friends that practiced and promoted the Avant-Garde in Barcelona and Madrid did not function in a vacuum. In fact, much of their survival depended on the quality and quantity of their ties with other like-minded individuals beyond their own group. This book is a work in cultural studies, because it identifies and analyzes the ways in which members of these various networks functioned by using concepts borrowed from the discipline of network studies, without leaving literature, history, language, or politics out of the picture. The book’s argument is placed within the cultural context of the Avant-Garde in Spain. It takes into account the cultural, social, and political environment of those who promoted this movement. It also takes into consideration their various instruments and modes of communication, such as literary magazines, pamphlets, personal letters, poetry, manifestos, conferences, informal meetings, and art objects. This book is a cultural contextualization of the Avant-Garde that simultaneously takes into account the multiple social networks connecting Barcelona and Madrid.

The representatives of avant-garde Barcelona and Madrid not only identified with one another, but they connected with each other so as to sustain this new way of expressing themselves and being. The members of both of these groups expanded their networks in order to make new connections with like-minded individuals, regardless of the potential limitations of nationality, geography, social class, age, culture, sexual preference, religious affiliation, or politics. The direction of the expansion of networks is bilateral: Madrid networks reached out to Barcelona and vice versa. It is also multidirectional. These networks expanded out to other centers in Spain, like Seville and La Coruña, and to other cities in Europe and the Americas. In building a system with the intention of breaking with the past, members of the Barcelona and Madrid vanguard networks sustained a revolutionary movement that helped change the cultural identity of Spain and Catalonia. Regardless of their differences, the promoters of the Avant-Garde in Barcelona and Madrid shared a progressive spirit in which the act of crossing and breaking borders was fundamental. As a result of the development of personal and professional relationships, cultural unity was promoted in the name of overall change.

This book is an exploration of the networks connecting people and groups centered in Barcelona and Madrid that were associated with the Avant-Garde, through the consideration of literary, visual, political, and journalistic texts. It reveals a complicated web of dialogue, assumptions, cultural clashes, political impasses, and misunderstandings. The protagonists of both cities adopted avant-garde ideologies to associate themselves with and differentiate themselves from others, depending on the political climate and personal circumstances. The common link that connected the Barcelona and Madrid avant-garde networks was a shared spirit of rupture, resistance, and renewal of art, culture, literature, and society. By considering the Avant-Garde with a more broad and multifaceted vision, a more complicated version of history emerges, but also one that more closely resembles the truth.

The purpose of chapter 1 is to address the Avant-Garde generally and in relation to Spain. After considering the definition of the word avante-garde, this part of the book describes those vanguard movements with the greatest impact in Spain. Some of the ideas of these groups and tendencies were imported from abroad, but others were made in Spain. Key characteristics and some of the principal goals of these movements are introduced. Then a description of how people participated in these movements is provided. It is argued that the vanguard artists in Spain forged a new, more modern identity, one that could be defined as interconnected, because of the necessity to transcend differences in order to persist. Three conclusions about the Avant-Garde in Spain as a result of widening the analytical lens are presented at the end of this chapter, each of which will be addressed in the subsequent chapters of the book in a more thorough manner. But first, some other critical concepts must be discussed.

Chapter 2 is an introduction to the basic measures and key concepts of network studies. The nature and properties of links are explained, such as direction, intensity, frequency, strength, and symmetry. These terms are described through the specific example of the relationship, or cluster, between three individuals. The critical vocabulary of network studies is presented by looking at the connections that link Federico García Lorca (a Spanish poet from the south of Spain who lived in Madrid and visited Barcelona on several occasions), Sebastià Gasch (a Catalan art critic who lived in Barcelona and published frequently in Madrid), and Rafael Barradas (a Uruguayan painter who lived in Barcelona and Madrid and played an active role in both avant-garde networks). Using this “cluster” as an example to introduce concepts borrowed from the discipline of network studies, several other people must inevitably be introduced in order to explain the Lorca-Gasch-Barradas connection, including Joan Miró (a Catalan painter who lived in Paris), Salvador Dalí (a Catalan painter who lived in Barcelona, Madrid, and Paris), Lluís Montanyà (a Catalan journalist who lived in Barcelona), and Josep Dalmau (a Catalan art merchant and gallery owner). The multiplexity of connections evident in this example strengthens the book’s argument that the avant-garde networks of Barcelona and Madrid were more connected than we have been led to believe. The chapter ends by mentioning other critical nodes in the two vanguard systems. Some are well known, such as Pablo Picasso, but most others are not, as is the case with Joan Salvat-Papasseit and Luis Bagaría.

Before moving ahead with the main analysis of the systems connecting avant-garde Barcelona and Madrid, chapter 3 outlines the political panorama at the time. First, this section offers some introductory explanations regarding the historic rivalry between Barcelona and Madrid. It looks back to the Spanish monarchy’s centralization policies throughout the fifteenth through eighteenth centuries, which resulted in gradual losses of autonomy, rights, and power in Catalonia in relation to the Spanish crown. In order to understand the turmoil of the early twentieth century, several key facts about the nineteenth century are mentioned, including the Carlist Wars, the overthrow of the Spanish monarchy, and the establishment of the First Republic, all in the shadow of the Industrial Revolution. Spain’s military loss to the United States in 1898 had grave effects on Barcelona, Madrid, and their relations; each city came up with its own ways of dealing with the loss of the empire. In Catalonia, several cultural and political movements surfaced, such as modernisme and noucentisme. In Madrid, intellectuals and politicians responded with regenerationism, while writers came together to find solutions to this crisis, forming what is known as the Generation of ’98. Urban strife seemed constant as tensions increased between Barcelona and Madrid. Spain was involved in an unpopular war in North Africa, and in the rest of Europe, many civilians were also losing their lives in World War I.

Chapter 4 draws attention to periodicals that were critical in connecting the avant-garde networks of Barcelona and Madrid. Known as “little magazines,” these periodicals where necessary to the survival of the movement. It was within their pages that trends would be introduced and debated. These magazines also provided some of the platforms on which relationships formed and evolved between members. In addition, these little magazines maintained the network that sustained them. Three patterns emerged in the study of over one hundred little magazines from the time period in question. First, there is a clear intention to dialogue, immediately prior to the appearance of the first avant-garde movement in Spain. The direction of this tie is bilateral; in other words, from Madrid to Barcelona and vice versa (1904–9). Second, during the years in which the avant-garde movements were introduced to Spain, there is an increase in communication between Barcelona and Madrid through these periodicals (1909–23). Third, there is a distinct shift away from the two major urban centers and to the peripheries (1923–29), which also happens to coincide with the dictatorship of General Miguel Primo de Rivera. The periodicals in Barcelona and Madrid turn inwards, and we find publications of avant-garde periodicals in cities throughout Spain, such as Huelva, Malaga, Manresa, Murcia, and Seville.

The primary concern of chapter 5 is the art world of the Avant-Garde in Spain. This section of the book begins with a brief introduction to cubism and surrealism in Spain through the examples of two artists, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí, paying special attention to their connections. The scene is set for describing the readiness of Barcelona and Madrid for accepting avant-garde artistic ideas and practices. This chapter is divided into five sections, each of which provides an example of the relationships between Barcelona and Madrid in the context of avant-garde art. The first section is dedicated to one of the major bridge builders between these two cities, Rafael Barradas, who actively contributed to the art scene in both of these cities. The second section of this chapter discusses differences in showing practices, buying behaviors, and artistic attitudes before addressing three crucial art shows in describing the dissonances and resonances of the avant-garde circles in Barcelona and Madrid. These three shows were the Iberians (Madrid, 1925), Modern Catalan Art (Madrid, 1926), and Spaniards Residing in Paris (Madrid, 1929). Like Barradas, the role of Salvador Dalí as a major bridge figure is also discussed.

Chapter 6 concludes with a case in point. One man, Ernesto Giménez Caballero, made unparalleled efforts to connect Barcelona and Madrid during the 1920s. He did so mostly through his periodical, La Gaceta Literaria (Madrid, 1927–32), but also through events he organized, such as the Catalan Book Fair (Madrid, 1927). This final chapter is divided into three main sections. The first describes his attitudes prior to the launching of his periodical, one of the principal organs for the diffusion of information about the Avant-Garde in Spain. The second section deals with his periodical and two events related to it: first, a celebration of the periodical’s first anniversary in Barcelona, and second, organizing and executing the Catalan Book Fair in Madrid. The systematic inclusion of Catalan culture in La Gaceta Literaria is explained as one of his goals for the periodical, but also as a matter of necessity due to financial compromises with influential members of a political party from Catalonia. There is a clear shift in the attitude toward Catalans and Catalonia on behalf of Giménez Caballero and his periodical after the fall of the dictator, General Miguel Primo de Rivera. If, in the early days of La Gaceta Literaria, he proclaimed that ineffective communication was Spain’s greatest ill, in the end, he claimed that it was actually separatism.

The hope is that readers will feel that they are getting both sides of the story; that they are learning about the avant-garde circles of Madrid and Barcelona simultaneously. The intention is to shed light on the more global and interconnected nature of the Avant-Garde network in Spain. This system consists of at least two centers, Barcelona and Madrid, instead of just one. Furthermore, there is an emphasis on all that connected the two largest cities of the Iberian Peninsula during turbulent and bellicose times. Finally, readers may realize that much more work of this comparative kind remains to be done in Spain, between different regions, or autonomous communities, that are so widely different, and also in relation to Portugal. Rather than take an isolationist stance, the intent is to be more encompassing of the linguistic variety, long history, and ancient traditions that make this part of the world so culturally rich and extraordinary.