Noucentisme

Noucentisme (noucentista being its adjective) was a Catalan cultural movement of the early 20th century that originated largely as a reaction against Modernisme, both in art and ideology, and was, simultaneously, a perception of art almost opposite to that of avantgardists. In 1906, Eugeni d'Ors coined the term following the Italian tradition of naming styles after the centuries (for example, Quattrocento, Cinquecento, etc.) and using the phonetically equivalent words nou (nine) and nou (new) to suggest it was a renovation movement. The same year two essential works for Noucentisme were published: "Els fruits saborosos" by poet Josep Carner and "La nacionalitat catalana" by the Conservative politician Enric Prat de la Riba.

The use of both labels ( Noucentisme and the 1914 generation ) is not totally interchangeable, since the term Noucentisme was coined in Catalan by Eugenio d'Ors ( noucentisme ) with a purpose more restricted to the Catalan cultural sphere. He developed it in a set of articles published since 1906, where he proposed the idea of ​​a social and civic art, surpassing modernism or symbolism , which he considered obsolete and decadent. Already in 1901 his conference Amiel in Vich showed the rejection of modernism and romantic tradition. In 1911 he published the Almanach dels Noucentistes. The same year, the painter Joaquim Sunyer exhibited in Faianç Catalá ; in what was considered a manifesto of the new aesthetic. This proposal of renewal of the plastic arts would last in the decades of 1910 and 1920.

Among the literary noucentistes would be, notably, the own D'Ors and Josep Carner ; besides Narcís Oller , Joaquim Ruyra , Jacinto Grau , Carles Soldevila or Josep Maria Millàs-Raurell , among others. The Catalan authors of noucentisme derived from the Renaixença pretending to raise the Catalan culture to a European level. They sought beauty and formal perfection, with a taste for archaic words, classical references and harmonic rhythms. The aesthetic and ideological pretensions of the authors of the generation of 14 were very similar. Although they do not have a group conscience, the Noucentistes did share some coinciding features, among themselves and with the members of the 1914 generation , such as their high intellectual preparation, their choice for essay writing , their Europeanism (which put the Castilianism ninety-eightist) ; the constant obsession for a work "well done", away from any improvisation, and a great care of the form.

The term Mediterraneanism is also used (to designate especially the plastic artists of the «Noucentista» movement: the painters Joaquín Torres García , Joaquim Sunyer and Josep Maria Sert , and the sculptors Josep Clarà , Manolo Hugué , Enric Casanovas , Julio González , Pablo Gargallo and Cristino Mallo The Catalan-French Arístides Maillol , from a previous generation, has been associated with the aesthetics of this movement ( Mediterránea , 1905), among the musicians were Óscar Esplá , Joaquín Turina and Conrado del Campo. Contemporary of these was the great cellist Pau Casals .

There is also talk of an architecture of noucentisme , differentiated but simultaneous to the modernist architecture of the first decades of the 20th century. architects such as Josep Goday or the Girona architect Rafael Masó i Valentí (1880-1935), will be among the clearest promoters of the Noucentista architecture, while Josep Maria Pericas mixes modernist and Noucentista elements, especially in civil works. Also it even got to name a noucentista gardening .

The journalist and cartoonist Junoy ( Josep Maria Junoy i Muns ), disconnected from D'Ors and the Noucentist group, proposed the creation of a «Mediterranean school» with similar aesthetic foundations (articles since 1911 in La Piedad , with the pseudonym Héctor Bielsa ).

In the arts

Despite certain similarities between the movements, it opposed Modernisme, the previous movement, and the radical and individualist views and Bohemian lifestyle most of its proponents engaged in. Noucentisme glorified order and what they saw as the spirit of the 20th century and an idealist expectancy of change. The novel was largely excluded in favour of poetry, which was more useful to convey the spirit of the style. The style as a whole shows a predilection for a Classicist approach, Europeanism, Modernism and a struggle to perfect the literary style of language. Artists and politicians were close collaborators.

Its main defining features in poetry are a return to Apollonian classicism, a very refined and accurate language, objectivity and rejection of abrupt feelings and a particular interest in nature. Its stylistical origins in the tradition started by Josep Torras i Bages, the Escola Mallorquina ("Majorcan School") led by the Conservative Joan Alcover and the priest Miquel Costa i Llobera, the French Parnassian poetry and the Symbolists are obvious in most of the works produced in the period that spans from 1906 to approximately 1923. The Vienna Secession was a key influence to their ideal of beauty in architecture. The architect Rafael Masó i Valentí (1880-1935), works mainly in Girona and its regions, is one of the clearest promoters of nineteenth-century architecture. The architects of the first period, as Josep Maria Pericas mix and nineteenth-century modernist elements, especially in civil engineering.

Its most prominent adherent, Josep Carner, known by his epithet of "prince of the Catalan poets" and produced very elaborate, ornate poetry, reminiscent of the baroque and still admired for his beautiful style and refined language.

In the following decades, though, the name of the movement has acquired a negative connotation of an excessively affected and artificial literature, just the opposite of Moderniste Joan Maragall's Romantic theory of "the living word", that is, spontaneity in creation.

Painters and sculptors of the Noucentista period are Joaquim Sunyer, Joaquín Torres-García and Manolo Hugué (who was a close friend of Picasso).

Architecture 

In architecture, the Noucentisme between 1911 and 1931 the direction. Their representatives accused modernism of being an anarchic and decadent art form. In contrast to the "romantic chaos" of modernism, they advocated the order, the clarity, the harmony, the measure and the rationality of architecture. For the first impulse was crucial Josep Puig i Cadafalch , whose work is visible on the objects of Casa Trinxet and the Casa Company of Barcelona . Later, he adapted the structure of an office building with large horizontal windows newly developed by Louis Sullivan in Chicago, as the construction of the Casa Pich i Pou in 1921 at the Plaça de Catalunya in Barcelona shows, while remaining true to Mediterranean characteristics. Another representative of the neopopular direction was Josep Goday , who built complex buildings with all the attributes of classical monumentality. His main works, the new elementary schools of Barcelona, ​​he decorated from 1917 with sgraffiti and terracotta figures .

Painting 

In the field of painting, there was initially a classical prelude, derived from Puvis de Chavannes and the primitivist symbolism . One of his important representatives was the Uruguayan painter Joaquín Torres García , who painted the hall 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 geometrical forms, Torres Garcia came to Paris, where he became a champion of the movement Cercle et Carré and campaigned for the dissemination of abstract art. In Montevideo he promoted the movement Círculo y Cuadrado, which kicked off the entire modern movement in South America.

Joaquim Sunyer (1874-1956) was the Catalan painter who helped the Noucentisme in Catalonia to make his decisive breakthrough. He succeeded in synthesizing a landscape analysis whose structural aspects came from Cézanne and a figurative art that showed the same structure as in some patterns of the early Italian Renaissance. Sunyer was anti-realist and normative, he represented primordial images of Catalan landscapes where man conquered nature, as in the Maresme coastal area and in the hinterland of Sitges , and portrayed his compatriots with great sense of harmony and balance.

In 1918 Joan Miró together with JF Ràfols, Francesc Domingo, Rafael Sala founded the group Courbet (Agrupació Courbet), named after Gustave Courbet ; the name stood for the desire to be considered progressive artists within Barcelona and to overcome the Catalan neo-classical art flow of the Noucentisme. However, their joint efforts of vivid, colorful works have been unsuccessful.

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

Literature 

The authors of the Noucentisme claimed from the Renaixença the aspiration to raise Catalan literature to a higher European level, especially through the restoration of classical literature and formal perfection. The works of Noucentisme seek beauty, harmony and are full of cultivations , metaphors and classical references.

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

Significant Authors 

José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955)

Salvador de Madariaga (1886-1978)

Gregorio Marañón (1887-1960)

Eugeni d'Ors (1882-1954)

Ramón Pérez de Ayala (1880-1962)

Gabriel Miró (1879-1930)

Lola Anglada (1896-1984)

In politics

Catalonia was the most industrialised and therefore wealthiest region of Spain at the time. A change of attitude towards politics among members of Catalan bourgeoisie helped develop the basis of political pragmatism and idealism in Noucentisme. Catalan nationalism was becoming seriously influential in politics for the first time, especially incarned in the right-wing and Catholic party Regionalist League, whose goal, despite having a full national conscience, was to achieve a number of reforms to reassure the hegemony of the Catalan principate within Spain and to become more influential in the decision-making in Spanish politics, instead of achieving formal independence.

Following the disagreements that took place among Catalan politicians, intellectuals and, most prominently, the working class of Barcelona (after the "disaster" of 1898 and the Rif War, especially after what has come to be known as Semana Tràgica or Tragic Week in 1909), a segment of the population wished to disengage from Spain. The Catalan nationalist tradition in the 19th century had relied on protectionist views held by both the bourgeoisie and the working classes. On the other hand, an anti-liberal and reactionary Carlism that reclaimed its ancient rights and privileges still existed in the countryside and helped give birth, through Vigatanisme, to the emerging right-wing Catalanism. These new Noucentista views had partly assimilated and inherited these ideals, but were in favour of more modern values that represented their faith in (most probably far-fetched) idealist changes. A majority of members of the industrial bourgeoisie of the country supported the Regionalist League, which became the most influential party until about 1925.

Now that they had been given the chance, intellectuals of Noucentisme (itself a vehicle of this conservative, Catholic Catalanism), led by Eugeni d'Ors, advocated a project of cultural intervention based on four principles: Imperialism, Arbitrarism, Civility, and Classicism.

Noucentista imperialism was a conservative and up-to-date version of the principles of Spanish Regenerationism designed to make Catalonia the leading region of modernization of the Spanish state and society.

Arbitrarism was a philosophy naming literary creation a symbol of human will conquering reality. Their particular will could be summed up as an "ideal Catalonia" that would come to replace the "real Catalonia" through the remaining two precepts, Civility and Classicism.

Their concept of civility was rooted in a vision of an "ideal Catalonia" equalled to that of a Catalan polis ruled on the principles of culture, harmony, a democratic community life and order versus what they saw as the barbaric countryside.

Their interest in an Apollonian Classicism was not only of a literary nature: they desired formal perfection, harmony and flawless proportion to be everywhere. Mediterraneity came to be seen as a synthesis of the Noucentista ideal.

Their intervention in practice was carried out following three goals:

A reform of the country based on their ideology.

Orthographic reform of the Catalan language.

Editorial support and cultural infrastructures for the Catalan language.

They chose Barcelona as the natural centre of all these institutional reforms.

Their project was never completely fulfilled, among other reasons because of disagreements between members of Noucentisme, anti-catalanist repression under the 1923-1930 dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera, and the consequent rise to popularity and power of left-wing Catalan nationalist and independentist parties. However, a large renovation of Catalan society took place, especially thanks to the reforms during the period of the Commonwealth of Catalonia and Catalan got its first consistent spelling rules with the reform led by Pompeu Fabra.

They also promoted the creation of institutions in charge of the cultural and official development of Catalan. The Bernat Metge Foundation translated Greek and Latin language classics into Catalan and the Institut d'Estudis Catalans became a regulator body for Catalan. Also dating from the Noucentista era are other official institutions to promote culture and make it widely accessible were Network of Popular Libraries, the Catalan Drama School, the School of Librarians and the Library of Catalonia.

Prominent members

Eugenio d'Ors

Josep Carner

Pompeu Fabra

Josep Goday i Casals - architect

Rafael Masó

Eugeni d'Ors ("Xènius")

Enric Prat de la Riba

Josep Puig i Cadafalch

José Ortega y Gasset

Joaquim Sunyer

Source From Wikipedia