Francesc Pujols

Francesc Pujols i Morgades (born August 11, 1882 in Barcelona , † February 13, 1962 in Martorell ) was a Catalan writer and philosopher.

A bust by Francesc Pujols

Career

During his college studies, influenced by the work of Jacint Verdaguer and Joan Maragall , he began to write verse. He frequented the bohemian restaurant Els Quatre Gats , where he met musicians like Enrique Granados and Isaac Albéniz or painters like Ricard Canals , Marià Pidelaserra and Isidre Nonell . In 1903 he took part in the literary competition of the Jocs Florals in Barcelona, ​​where he won the Natural Flower with his poem Idil·li ('Idyll'). In 1904 he published his collected poems under the title Llibre que conté les poesies d'en Francesc Pujols ('Book containing the poems of Francesc Pujols'), with the introduction of Joan Maragall, who saw Pujols as a representative of the "living word" .

In 1903 he gave his first lecture at the Ateneu Barcelonès on the painter Marià Pidelaserra , on whom he later published the first monograph ( El pintor Pidelaserra , 1937). This was the beginning of his career as an art critic, in 1921 the first "collection of art reviews " ( Recull d'articles de crítica artística ) appeared. He distinguished himself as one of the first defenders of the controversial architect Antoni Gaudí , to whom he dedicated the aesthetic essay La visió artística i religiosa d'en Gaudí ('The artistic and religious vision of Gaudí', 1927), translated into French in 1969 by the painter Salvador Dalí, who was friends with Pujols .

In 1906, under the pseudonym "Augusto de Altozanos", he published his first novel, El Nuevo Pascual o la Prostitución ('The New Pascual or The Prostitution'), an erotic and fantastic philosophical novel in Spanish with literal translation from Catalan Twists. In 1907 he traveled to Madrid , where he enjoyed “unsurpassable aesthetic emotions” in the Prado Museum , read for hours in the library of the Ateneo and in the evening visited the Maison Dorée, where he met the politician Francesc Cambó . In 1908, back in Barcelona, ​​he frequented the Ateneu Barcelonès , where he took the position of secretary from 1924, while Pompeu Fabra was chairman, and when he joined the editorial team of the newly founded satirical magazine Papitu (1908-1937), which he developed in 1911 –1914 should publish itself, a remarkable journalistic activity that continued in magazines such as El Poble Català , Las Noticias , La Publicidad , Revista Nova and Mirador . In Papitu 1908/09 his second and last novel, published La tardor barcelonina (, Autumn in Barcelona '), a voravantgardistisches work under the influence of Guillaume Apollinaire and black romance . He was a co-founder of the group Les Arts i els Artistes (The arts and the artists, 1910-1936). As a playwright , he published a "paraphrastic translation" of the book of Job in pitarresque verse form ( El llibre de Job , 1922), the tragedy Medeia (1923) and Hiparxiologi o Ritual de la Religió catalana ('Hyparxiology or ritual of the Catalan religion', 1937) , a lyric drama as a religious ritual first performed by Salvador Dalí in 1986 .

In 1918, Francesc Pujols published the Concepte general de la ciència catalana ('General Concept of Catalan Science'), in which he seeks to show a specifically Catalan intellectual tradition from the Middle Ages to the present, which begins with Ramon Llull and Ramon Sibiuda is continued. From the Catalan philosophy, whose unifying basic feature is supposed to be an analytical and synthetic realism at the same time, which connects reason and reality, Pujols derives a "philosophy of the concrete", which he, especially in a fundamental criticism of his Catalan contemporary Eugeni d'Ors , in Spain juxtaposes prevailing philosophical currents based in German idealism . The concept general , with which Pujols influenced a whole generation of intellectuals, contains his famous prophecy that Catalonia, because it is the land of truth, will one day rule the world and that the Catalans, the children of the land of truth, will do so everywhere they go will pay all expenses.

In the following years he wrote other philosophical works, such as L'evolució i els principis immutables ('Evolution and the unchangeable principles', 1921) or La religó i la moral ('Religion and morality', 1921). Francesc Pujols built up a philosophical system, initially under the name Sumpèctica o Ciència del Concret ('Sumpectic [?] Or Science of Concrete'), later Hiparxiologia o Ciència de l'Existència ('Hyparxiology or Science of Existence') and finally Pantologia o Ciència del Tot ('pantology or science of the whole'). As the culmination of his universal science, Pujols founded the so-called Catalan scientific religion. In 1931, the writer Josep Pla dedicated a book to his line of thought entitled El sistema de Francesc Pujols. Manual d'hiparxiologia ('The system of Francesc Pujols. Manual of hyparxiology'). Salvador Dalí , who published a monograph under the title Pujols per Dalí ('Pujols von Dalí', 1974) and erected a monument in his honor in front of the Teatre-Museu in Figueres , called Pujols “the greatest philosophical genius of our time” and described his Universal science as "surrealism before surrealism".

In 1926 he published the Historia de l'hegemonia catalana en la política espanyola ('History of Catalan Hegemony in Spanish Politics') in two volumes . Other works of a political nature followed, such as La solució Cambó ('The Cambó Solution', 1931) or El problema peninsular ('The peninsular problem', 1935).

In 1926 Pujols moved to Martorell in the Torre de les Hores, originally built by his father as a summer residence. Towards the end of the Spanish Civil War he went into exile in France and was a guest of Pau Casals in Prada de Conflent (1939). He later moved to the Residence des Intellectuels Catalans in Montpellier , where he met the writer and scientist Alexandre Deulofeu and gave lectures to young intellectuals such as the art critic Alexandre Cirici Pellicer and the politician Heribert Barrera . In 1942 he returned to Catalonia and was imprisoned in Barcelona for a month for “depuration”. From 1949 until his death he wrote for magazines such as Destino .

Works in German translation

• Autumn in Barcelona (La tardor barcelonina). Novel. Translated from the Catalan by Magnus Chrapkowski. Edited and with an afterword by Gerhard Wild. Arco Verlag, Wuppertal 2016. ISBN 3-938375-66-3

Web links

• Associació Francesc Pujols
• Fundació Francesc Pujols i Morgades

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Gerhard Wild: "Ingenious, but unknown", in: F. Pujols, "The autumn in Barcelona" . Wuppertal 2016, p. 84 .
2. ↑ Gerhard Wild: ibid. P. 91 .
3. ↑ Gerhard Wild: ibid. P. 85 .
4. ↑ Gerhard Wild: ibid. P. 80, 92 f .
5. ↑ Gerhard Wild: ibid. P. 80 f .
6. ↑ Gerhard Wild: ibid. P. 81 .
7. ↑ Gerhard Wild: ibid. P. 81 .
8. ↑ Gerhard Wild: ibid. P. 86 ff .
9. ↑ Gerhard Wild: ibid. P. 102 .