4.6: The Turn of the Century and Spanish Modernism

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During a period known as “the Bourbon Restoration” (the return of the Bourbon family to the monarchy), the last twenty-five years of the 19th century were of institutional stability in Spain, with a liberal model of the State and the rise of social and political movements, the fruit of industrial development. Within this model, the inhabitants of the Spanish territories in the Caribbean obtained some regional autonomy and the same civil rights as the peninsular ones. However, after decades of struggles for independence, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines secede from Spain after the war against the United States. This “disaster of 98", as it was then named, generated an in-depth reflection on national identity and the political path for the country. The painting on the right is part of the aesthetics that emerged in this period, which investigates how we construct individual and collective perception. Many thinkers and activists set out to rediscover “deep Spain”, the inner, local and daily life of the people, to generate a sense of national identity based more on appreciation for what is close rather than on imperial, military or colonialist glories.

Enganchando la Barca (Valencia), 1899, by Joaquín Sorolla (1863-1923). Ángel M. Felicísimo from Mérida, Spain, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Sociopolitical life: 1875-1925

on the one hand: on one hand army: army inequality: inequality arrangement: gradual compromise: gradual defeat: defeat loss: loss dismantle: dismantling coup d'état: coup d'état support: support landowner: large land owner lousy: terrible

As we have seen, in the second half of the 19th century, two ruling classes fought for Spanish political power with two competing nation projects. On the one hand, there was the aristocratic class, based on a traditional and colonialist agricultural system, with the support of the Church, military control, and a monarchical and conservative ideology centered on Castile. The army maintained control of territories in Africa, Asia and America. On the other hand, there was the emerging bourgeois, liberal and urban class, based on trade and incipient industry, strongest in northern Spain. These conflicting models accentuated regional inequality, with movements that emphasized local autonomy in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Catalonia, the Basque Country and the Philippines. The constitution of 1875 allowed a settlement between the two dominant elites organized into the conservative and liberal parties, although the crown retained much of the executive power. As a result of gradual industrial development, a proletariat was formed —which would become a third political force—, social activism achieved greater dynamism, urban life gained prominence in the national imagination, and the middle class became more numerous, although not the majority. The defeat against regional independence fighters and the United States, known as “the disaster” of 1898, in which Spain lost its last territories in America and Asia (Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam), also promoted a spirit of change. This loss put the colonialist economy and national identity in crisis. In the field of ideas, a revision of what Spain should be and the confrontation of the country's official image —the imperial monarchy—with the harsh realities of poverty and social conflict was encouraged. In this climate of conflict, Alfonso XIII ascended the throne in 1902. Working class movements presented serious challenges to traditional centralism and bourgeois hegemony. At the same time, the militaristic mentality, seeking to vindicate the army, wanted to strengthen central authority by force and restore the imperial destiny of Spain with the few remaining dominions in Africa. During the First World War (1914-18) the Spanish government remained neutral, busy with this internal debate. In those years, serious revolts took place until, in 1923, General Miguel Primo de Rivera staged a coup d'etat. Their power was consolidated with the support of the king, the armed forces, the Catalan bourgeoisie and the Andalusian landlords.

The Primo de Rivera dictatorship was presented as “a men's movement” against political corruption, with the idea of creating a more modern and functional nation. It suspended the constitution and suppressed political, journalistic and educational activity. Following the example of Mussolini's fascism in Italy, a vertical union was created in the 1920s, which made some concessions in terms of salaries and labor protection. Migration to cities accelerated and unemployment declined. In addition, around 1927 the Spanish army regained control of Spanish areas in Morocco. All of this generated popular support for the regime. At the same time, however, working conditions continued to be terrible and many sectors continued to actively oppose authoritarianism and social inequality. There were broad sectors that yearned for a democratic or even socialist system of government.

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Spanish Modernism and the “Generation of 98"

Intellectuals who share the idea of symbolically using the date of 1898 (end of the empire) to reflect on “the being of Spain” are known as the “Generation of 98”. The group included world-renowned writers such as Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936), Vicente Blasco Ibáñez (1867-1928) and Antonio Machado (1874-1939). The latter synthesized in his poems the dualist perception, prevalent at the time, of “the two Spains”: one Catholic, authoritarian, aristocratic and centralist, heir to the old empire and as if dreaming of the past; the other, the working, poor, struggling people. This is how it is seen in the last (L VIII) of his “Proverbs and Songs” (1917):

There is already a Spaniard who wants to live and begins to live, between a Spain that dies and another Spain that yawns. Spaniard that you come into the world, God save you. One of the two Spains must freeze your heart.

There is now a Spaniard who wants to live, and begins to live, between a dying Spain and another Spain that is yawning. Baby Spaniard, you who are coming to the world, may God protect you. One of the two Spains shall be freezing your heart.

To make the life of this “Spaniard” viable in a deliberate and dignified future that will not “freeze [his] heart”, these intellectuals travel around the country, study its landscapes and traditions, revalue the experience of the people and propose alternative visions of the social and cultural history of Spain. Although they include the different regions, they often use the austere and rural landscape of Castile as a metaphor for the Spanish people (Méndez-Faith 290). They reflect on Spanish in response to the collapse of the imperial project, the crisis of monarchical politics, and the new social and ideological forces of an increasingly industrial and secular country.

But his themes and aesthetics are not limited to Spain's “profound social trauma” (Gagen 91). ^{His literary production is in dialogue with European and American trends, generating a trend that can be more inclusively called “Spanish Modernism” because, like Hispano-American Modernism, he is innovative in all literary genres, he seeks in art a self-conscious space to investigate metaphysical or intuitive experiences, and he questions bourgeois positivism [1].} In fact, there was significant interaction with Latin American modernists, especially through Rubén Darío. In both cases, it is an intellectual middle class negotiating its place—and that of art—in societies that are torn between aristocratic tradition and less developed bourgeois progress than in the hegemonic centers of the north, where the most influential decisions are made. In both, there is an evocative search for spiritual transcendence through art, related to French symbolism ^[2]: “not painting the thing itself, but the effects it produces” (Mallarmé). It is considered that poetic vision can and must intuitively illuminate the path of nations and seeks to communicate the sensation of beauty.

But there are also important differences. On the one hand, northern Spain is industrializing more rapidly, giving a less foreign meaning to “cosmopolitanism” (which was almost clearly imported in Latin America) and fostering a vigorous worker-socialist movement. This allows for an aesthetic modernism that has a more dynamic contact with its own social context. It promotes anti-bourgeois innovation in arts of public participation such as the theater by the Galician Ramón del Valle Inclán (1866-1936) and the architecture of the Catalan Antonio Gaudí (1852-1926). In poetry, more flexible forms are produced, the philosophical and social dimension is emphasized, and brief forms of popular tradition such as the proverb or the song are adopted. They prefer a language close to everyday speech, with a shorter syntax; they recover the lexicon of the people, in an effort to work in harmony with the distinctive character of “the Spanish” (the Geist of historical romanticism). In this regard, most Spanish modernists are far from the exoticism and preciosity of their Spanish-American counterparts.

Spanish modernism, with its intention to create new art, is made public through widely distributed cultural magazines. His titles suggest the spirit of the time, such as the Contemporary Magazine (1875-1907), Modern Spain (1889—1914), Spanish Alma (1903-05), Don Quixote (1892-1902), Germinal (1897-1899), Vida Nueva (1898-1900), and the magazine Nuevo Teatro Crítico, by the influential feminist writer Emilia Pardo Bazán (1851-1921). Alternative theater was cultivated by several of the most important authors of this era, such as Unamuno, Valle-Inclán, Concha Espina (1869-1955), Pío Baroja (1872-1956) and Azorín (José Augusto Trinidad Martínez Ruiz 1873-1967). He was opposed to the realistic and bourgeois drama that was so successful on stage, exemplified in the traditional works of the Álvarez Quintero brothers —Serafín (1871-1938) and Joaquín (1873-1944) —who represent a light tone in an intellectual period more influenced by Castilian and tragic

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[1] It is important to note that Hispanic Modernism predates and differs from Brazilian modernism (1920s) and from European and North American “Modernism” (1900-30); these last two correspond more to what is known in the Hispanic tradition as “vanguard” (avant-garde).

[2] Symbolism: a poetic trend from the end of the 19th century, characterized by free verse, sophisticated musicality, interest in the mysterious or mystical, and the construction of subjective and ambiguous symbols to evoke emotions through synesthesia (correspondence between physical and psychological sensations). It was a reaction against the formal perfectionism of the Parnassians and understood art as a way of knowing metaphysical or psychological realities. Four famous French symbolists are Charles Baudelaire (1821-67), Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-98), Paul Verlaine (1844-96) and Arthur Rimbaud (1854-91).

 

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Romantic vs. Modernist Aesthetics

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Fuentes

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• Blanco Aguinaga, Carlos, et al. Social history of Spanish literature. Akal, 2000.
• Carr, R. Spain 1808-1936. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982.
• Davies, Catherine, ed. The Companion to Hispanic Studies. Oxford University Press, 2002.
• Gagen, Derek. “Twentieth-Century Spain.” The Companion to Hispanic Studies. London: Oxford U.P., 2002.
• Garcia de Cortázar, Fernando and José Manuel González Vesga. Brief history of Spain. Editorial Alliance, 2017.
• Gies, David, ed. The Cambridge History of Spanish Literature. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge U P, 2009.
• Glendinning, N. A Literary History of Spain: The Eighteenth Century. London: Berrn; New York: Barnes & Noble, 1972.
• Kattan Ibarra, Juan. Cultural perspectives of Spain. NTC Publishing, 1990.
• Mendez-Faith, Teresa. Literary Panoramas: Spain. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2008.