Artistic Movements: Avant-Garde, Novel, and Generation of ’27

Vanguards: Artistic Movements

Also known as “isms,” these movements rejected traditional art forms, advocating experimentation with new themes and expressions. Key movements include:

• Creationism: Hispanic, focused on creating reality within the artwork itself, employing language games.
• Surrealism: Of French origin, aimed to express emotions and subconscious thoughts.

New Novel of the Century

Alongside avant-garde movements, a revolution in novel form and content emerged in Europe:

• Marcel Proust: Analyzed the psychology of characters within high society.
• Franz Kafka: Expressed human anguish and the absurdity of social relationships in fiction.
• James Joyce: Notable for transgressive language, mixing styles and incorporating elements from other genres.

The Generation of ’27

A group of writers who met in 1927 to commemorate Gongora’s death tercentenary. They admired Juan Ramon Jimenez’s poetry. They moved beyond imitating traditional forms, incorporating new formal and thematic elements, fusing art and tradition. Key figures include: Lorca, Alberti, and Salinas. Their impact was significant, especially in poetry, with Lorca and Alberti also contributing to theater.

Juan Ramón Jiménez

Characterized by a pursuit of perfection, his creative cycles include:

• Sensitive Stage: Influenced by Modernism, emphasizing verse sound, symbols, and modernist motifs like sunsets and gardens. Musicality and adjectives are prominent.
• Intellectual Stage: Characterized by formal simplicity and complex themes such as loneliness, death, and eternity.
• “Status enough or true”: Seeking transcendence through perfection and beauty, identifying the quest for perfection with the search for God.

Federico Garcia Lorca: Poetry

His poetic work is divided into stages:

• First Stage: Gypsy Romance. Composed popular-style poems, using traditional Spanish forms to express desire, rebellion, and death. Includes Poema del Cante Jondo and Gypsy Ballads.
• Second Stage: Poet in New York. Influenced by avant-garde movements, especially Surrealism. Poems reflect poverty, hunger, and social injustice, using free verse and surreal imagery. The poem’s power lies in its ability to suggest and convey emotions.

Federico Garcia Lorca: Theater

A major Spanish theater innovator in the early 20th century. His peak includes three rural Andalusian tragedies:

• Blood Wedding: Explores impossible love.
• Yerma: Addresses a woman’s anguish over her inability to have children.
• The House of Bernarda Alba: Focuses on a mother’s moral tyranny.