4.4: Second Half of the 19th Century in Spain

 

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In the second half of the 19th century, Spain experienced a pendulum between maintaining its imperial and monarchical ideal (for example, by protecting its possessions in Africa and the Caribbean) and developing a capitalist economy with more democratic systems of government. Narrative, painting and other arts are moving away from romantic passions and seeking a less sentimental representation of everyday experience, in an aesthetic known as “realism”, also practiced in other parts of Europe and America. Some realistic painting and narrative direct their attention to past or contemporary history, seeking to offer a dimension of observation or social analysis. This painting by the Catalan artist Mariano Fortuny represents the wars (and victories) of the Spanish army in North Africa, but the style offers an analytical vision, encompassing both the victorious and the defeated, as well as the social effects of the war itself.

Detail of The Battle of Tetouan (Africa), 1864, by Marià Fortuny (1838-1874). Maria Fortuny Marsal, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Sociopolitical Life

In the second half of the 19th century, two ruling classes fought for Spanish political power with two national projects in conflict. 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. On the other hand, there was the emerging mostly liberal and urban bourgeois class, based on trade and an incipient industry, which expanded significantly in the 1850s and 60s.

By 1868, the monarchical system collapsed amid looting and revolts. Faced with the uprising of the army, Queen Elizabeth II goes into exile, and typically liberal measures are implemented, such as the separation of Church and State, civil marriage, popular vote, and freedom of expression, as well as freedom in industry and trade. This period is known as the “democratic six-year term”, because for six years various models of republic were tested (parliamentary monarchy, federal republic, unitary dictatorship). By 1875, however, this first republic was dissolved, and the army chose to restore the monarchy.

Queen Elizabeth II decided to abdicate in favor of her son, Alfonso XII, a more conciliatory figure. Thus, after almost a decade of sociopolitical tensions, the 1875 constitution allowed for an arrangement between the two ruling classes, organized into conservative and liberal parties, although the crown retained significant executive power. With moderate reforms and a parliamentary system similar to England's, this new government achieved two decades of stability known as “the Restoration”. However, the great economic disparity between classes continued to generate tensions, resulting in an activist proletariat, which, as a third political force, would emerge at the beginning of the 20th century.

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Realistic and Naturalistic Aesthetics

Capitalist development (the Industrial Revolution) in Europe generated secular societies that privileged scientific reason and knowledge based on observation and empirical data (positivism). In the field of the arts, the manifestation of this trend translates into an aesthetic of observation and realism: studying and credibly representing social scenes, attitudes and conflicts “typical” of particular times and places. Instead of the romantic interest in mystery and metaphysics, realism adopts the hegemonic perception, associated with bourgeois pragmatism, that what is observable and profitable is “real”. Towards the end of the century, a literary trend led by the French novelist Emile Zola —naturalism—took realistic aesthetics to a more radically “scientific” level, entrusting literature with a mission to diagnose and possibly remedy social ills through the detailed description of the environment and its impact on human behavior. Among the characteristics associated with realistic aesthetics, the following can be highlighted:

1) Taste for the detailed description and presentation of causes and consequences.
2) Longing to “portray”, without excessive emotional expressions, ways of life and geographical environments.
3) Extensive use of examples to explore different profiles of what is represented.
4) Taste for everyday life and for social issues, considering the relationships between the individual and their social environment.
5) Evaluation of the empirical, the observable through the senses.

In Spain, realism was widely disseminated in narrative, painting and theatre during the second half of the 19th century. The economic expansion led to a flourishing publishing industry, marked by serial publications that achieved commercial success through episodic narratives accessible and attractive to a wide audience. At the time of the Restoration (1875-1898), the realist novel developed on an unprecedented scale, with renowned authors such as Juan Valera (1821-1905), Benito Pérez Galdós (1843-1920), Emilia Pardo Bazán (1851-1921) and Leopoldo Alas, “Clarín” (1852-1901). This rich novel portrays the social situations of rural and urban life in various parts of the country, with a particular focus on the daily lives of ordinary people. In painting, money from trade and industry made it possible to finance projects involving portraits, landscapes and historical scenes. Some prestigious painters were Ramón Martí Alsina (1826-1894). Eduardo Rosales (1836-1873) and Mariano Fortuny (1838-1874).

With a similar basis in the greater purchasing power of a sector of the population, realist drama was rich and abundant in Spain during the second half of the 19th century. The anxiety of the upper bourgeoisie over its political and economic stability led to public debate, as reflected in the theatrical documentation of social life. Many works take place in offices and living rooms, where characters share each other's confidences, detail the lives and loves of the elite, or discuss current issues such as divorce, education, science, and rebellion. Although better known for his narrative work, Benito Pérez Galdós was one of the most influential realist playwrights of the time, constantly contrasting with (neo) romantic theater, which was also very popular, cultivated by writers such as José Echegaray (1832-1916), the first Spaniard to receive the Nobel Prize for literature (1904), for “keeping alive the great tradition of Hispanic drama”.

In poetry, realism had little space. Strongly associated with Romanticism, in the eyes of many authors of the time, the lyric genre seemed out of place in the era of science and progress. However, the success of the realist narrative influenced several poets to adopt a more direct language, a measured emotional tone, and a dimension of observation or social analysis. Part of the poetry of the conservative intellectual Ramón de Campoamor (1817-1901) reflects an intention to represent experience with less emotion than Romanticism. He elaborates a lyric closer to rational observation, seeking to “arrive at art through the idea and express it in common language, revolutionizing the substance and form of poetry”, as Campoamor himself proposes in his Poetics (1883). Part of his work expresses the pragmatic, wise and ingenious ethics of the bourgeois middle class. His most acclaimed creations are his short poems, which he calls Humoradas, Doloras, and Pequeño Poemas, in a style that is in dialogue with the moment, prosaic, ingenious, skeptical, secular, and in some cases, ironic, without metaphysical intentions. The following “little poem”, entitled “The Express Train” (1872), portrays well the rupture of realism with romantic sentimentality and the taste for expressing trivial or everyday thinking in an era of technological development:

Having stolen my agency, a love as unfortunate as mine, and having regained my reason and mind, I was returning from Paris by express train.

Habiéndome robado el albedrío un amor tan infausto como el mío, ya recobrados la razón y el seso, volvía de París en tren expreso.

 

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Romantic vs. realistic aesthetic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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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.
• Flitter, D. Spanish Romantic Theory and Criticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
• Garcia de Cortázar, Fernando and José Manuel González Vesga. A brief history of Spain. Editorial Alliance, 2017.
• Gies, David, ed. The Cambridge History of Spanish Literature. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge U P, 2009.
• Kattan Ibarra, Juan. Cultural perspectives of Spain. NTC Publishing, 1990.