Noucentisme

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Noucentisme was a cultural movement in Catalonia that emerged in the political environment of the Catalan movement Solidaritat Catalana founded in 1906 by Enric Prat de la Riba . It ended in 1923 with the Primo de Riveras coup . In the arts, noucentisme emerged as the Catalan form of neoclassicism and was largely a response to the "romantic chaos" of modernism .

The name

Eugeni d'Ors, founder of the Noucentisme . (Detail from his monument in Madrid, 1963)

The name Noucentisme was coined by Eugeni d'Ors (1881–1954). He founded it on the one hand with the Italian tradition of naming it according to the style of the centuries such as Quattrocento (1400s) or Cinquecento (1500s) . "Noucent" means "nine hundred" in Catalan and so the noucentisme should reflect the 1900s. On the other hand, “Nou” also means “New” in Catalan, and this term could also be understood to mean the “New Century”, which breaks with the “Old”.

Goals of the Noucentisme

In contrast to the modernists , the noucentists succeeded in combining politics and culture. The self-confident bourgeoisie supported Catalanism and intellectuality and were ready to contribute to greater autonomy for Catalonia.

The ideological values ​​of the Noucentisme were reason, exactness, seriousness, order and clarity. The clear line had priority over the color and sobriety was a goal to strive for. The Noucentisme was a clear reaction against liberalism , romanticism , naturalism , positivism and secularism . He opposed these currents by exerting greater influence over public life, renewed spirituality, and a greater appreciation of the will over experience.

The goals of the Noucentisme coincided most closely with the teachings of the École Romane founded by Jean Moréas , which pursued a neoclassical and “Mediterranean” ideal of beauty. This saw the roots of the Mediterranean culture in its Greco-Roman heritage and its purest expression in the French classical music of the 17th century. In addition, there was a clear proximity to the works of Paul Cézanne and the purist style of the magazine L'Esprit Nouveau by Le Corbusier and Amédée Ozenfant in France at the time. This Mediterraneanism conjured up the classics of Roman and Greek antiquity as the historical culture of the peoples on the northern shore of the Mediterranean. The Noucentisme made this culture part of the Catalan identity and set it in opposition to Modernisme , which had its roots in the Art Nouveau of Northern Europe.

The Noucentisme contributed significantly to consolidating the Catalan bourgeoisie as a formative class.

literature

The authors of the Noucentisme took over from the Renaixença the claim to raise Catalan literature to a higher European level, especially through the regaining of classical literature and formal perfection. The works of Noucentisme seek beauty, harmony and are full of cultisms , metaphors and classical references.

In 1906, two essential works of the Noucentisme were published: Els fruits saborosos Josep Carner and La nacionalitat catalana by the conservative politician Enric Prat de la Riba .

Eminent authors

architecture

In architecture, the Noucentisme set the direction between 1911 and 1931. Its representatives accused modernism of being an anarchic and decadent art form. In contrast to the “romantic chaos” of modernism, they advocated order, clarity, harmony, measure and rationality in architecture. Josep Puig i Cadafalch , whose work can be seen in the objects of the Casa Trinxet and the Casa Company of Barcelona, ​​was decisive for the first kick-off . He later adapted the structure of an office building with large horizontal windows, newly developed by Louis Sullivan in Chicago, as shown by the construction of Casa Pich i Pou in 1921 on Plaça de Catalunya in Barcelona, ​​although he remained true to Mediterranean features. Another representative of the neo-popular direction was Josep Goday , who erected building complexes with all the attributes of classical monumentality. From 1917 he decorated his main works, the new elementary schools in Barcelona, ​​with sgraffiti and terracotta figures .

painting

In the field of painting, there was initially a classical prelude, which was derived from Puvis de Chavannes and primitivist symbolism . One of its important representatives was the Uruguayan painter Joaquín Torres García , who painted the room of the Generalitat in Barcelona, ​​which also bears his name. Under the influence of Cubism and Futurism as well as the world of industrial and geometric shapes, Torres Garcia came to Paris, where he became a pioneer of the Cercle et Carré movement and promoted the spread of abstract art. In Montevideo he promoted the Círculo y Cuadrado movement, which gave the impetus for the entire modern movement in South America.

Paul Cézanne: Bathers , 1900–1905, Art Institute of Chicago
Three naked in the forest
Joaquim Sunyer , 1913-1915
Oil on canvas
Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya , Barcelona

Link to the picture
(please note copyrights )

Joaquim Sunyer (1874–1956) was the Catalan painter who helped the Noucentisme in Catalonia to achieve its decisive breakthrough. He succeeded in synthesizing a landscape analysis , the structural aspects of which came from Cézanne , and figural art that showed the same structure as in some of the patterns of the early Italian Renaissance. Sunyer was anti-realistic and normative, he reproduced archetypes of Catalan landscapes where man has conquered nature, such as in the coastal area of ​​the Maresme and in the hinterland of Sitges , and portrayed his compatriots with a great sense of harmony and balance.

In 1918 Joan Miró founded together with JF Ràfols, Francesc Domingo, Rafael Sala the group Courbet (Agrupació Courbet), named after Gustave Courbet ; the name stood for the desire to be regarded as a progressive artist within Barcelona and to overcome the Catalan neo-classical art movement of the Noucentisme. However, their joint efforts to produce lively, colorful works were not very successful.

In parallel and in contrast to the Noucentisme, a group of capitalists closely connected to the Spanish state supported a monumentalist art movement under the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera from 1923 to 1930. The only significant Catalan artist of this direction was the painter Josep Maria Sert .

swell

  • Noucentisme in Enciclopèdia Catalana
  • La generación del 14 entre el novecentismo y la vanguardia (1906-1926) , 2002.
  • Menéndez Alzamora, Manuel. La Generación del 14th Una aventura intelectual , 2006.
  • Jardi, E. Arquitecte, politic i historiador de l'art , 1975.

Individual evidence

  1. Guillermo Díaz-Plaja: Estructura y sentido del Novencentismo español . Madrid 1975
  2. NOUVEAU IN CATALONIA Catalonia Art Nouveau on gaudiallgaudi.com
  3. José Ortega y Gasset: Obras Completas, Volume 1, Madrid 1975, Pag. 265-300
  4. Joan Lluís Marfany: L'Avenc: Revista de història i cultura neocentisme , ISSN  0210-0150 , Nº 194, 1995, pags. 16-19
  5. Joaquin Torres Garcia: Art-Evolució, in: Un enemic del poble, 1917. (French and Italian versions published in Arc Voltaic , February 1918) (one-time edition)
  6. José Luis Abellán: Historia del pensamiento critico, Volume 5, Pag. 114-116
  7. ^ Janis Mink: Joan Miró , Taschen, Cologne 2006, ISBN 978-3-8228-6367-1 , pp. 18-20
  8. Mario P Diaz Barrado, Palabra de dictador: General Primo de Rivera, análisis de discursos (1923–1930), Biblioteca de bolsillo

Bibliography

  • Paul Cézanne: About art, conversations with Gasquet. Edited by Walter Hess, in: Rowohlt's Classics of Literature and Science, ed. by Ernesto Grassi, Rowohlt Verlag Hamburg 1957; Mäander Kunstverlag, Mittenwald 1980, ISBN 3-88219-058-2 (Joachim Gasquet: Cézanne. 1921)
  • Cercle et carré , numbers 1 to 3, Michel Seuphor, 1930, ISBN 2-85893-224-7
  • Emmanuel Guigon: Joaquín Torres-García. Un mondo contruit . Edition Hazan, Strasbourg 2002, ISBN 2-901833-53-5 (catalog for the exhibition of the same name)

See also

Web links

Commons : Noucentisme in Catalonia  - Collection of images, videos and audio files