Course Description:

The objective of this course is to offer a survey approach to the history of artistic developments in Spain from Goya to our days.
A background on this specific field is not required. For this reason not only the main artistic events will be covered, but also some political, historical and cultural issues that might be relevant.
Although this course is mainly based on lectures; some visits to museums and exhibitions will be also part of the course requirements. These visits will be made during the class time, and are equivalent to an usual in-class lecture.

Course Content:

1. Goya and Iluminism: light and darkness. The work of Goya in the context of Iluminism in Napoleonic wars in Spain.

2. History: National past and its artistic image in XIX century Spanish painting. The Historic Painting as a genre, as well as a medium to construct a deliberate image of the past.

3. 1898: Rediscovering Spanish landscape and its consequences. The influence of the literary generation of 1898 and its morale on the landscape painting at different times of the XX century, from “luminismo” to the avant-gardes.

4. “Modernisme” and Catalunya. The “modernista” style as a reflection of the economic, political and social progress of Catalonia at the turn of the century.

5. Regionalism: geographic, social and artistic difference. Territorial and artistic differences at the Spanish peripheral regions, between modernism and tradition.

6. Avantgarde: París as a Mecca. Spain, as a province of the Parisian metropoli and the presence of Spanish artists in the international avant-gardes.

7. Art and Comittment during the Civil War. Guernica. Art as a political issue: The works in the Spanish Republic Pavilion at the International fair of 1937.

8. The Franco era. Art in Spain from 1939 to 1975. Main problems and events in the artistic development during Franco’s dictatorship: cultural isolation; abstraction vs. figurative art; artistic institutions and political issues.

9. Art in Democratic Spain. A new scope. Some relevant examples of the new situation of Spanish art after the advent of Democracy: the museum boom, the international status of Spanish artists. A new social support for art and culture?

10. The last decades. An analysis of some of the most outstanding Spanish current artists trough exhibitions in Barcelona.

Bibliography

No handbook on Spanish modern and contemporary art is available in English.
However, as a general review we recommend reading:

Moffit, John: The Arts in Spain. London, 1999
(Pages 175-231)

A reader with some articles and book chapters will be also provided.

Selected Specific Bibliography:

- Amell, Samuel (Ed.) Literature, the arts, and democracy : Spain in the eighties; with translations by Alma Amell. Rutherford, Madison, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press ; London ; Toronto : Associated University Press, c1990

- Chipp Herschel B. Picasso's Guernica History, Transformations, Meanings. With a chapter by Javier Tusell. Berkeley, Berkeley University of California Press,1988

-Daix, Pierre. Picasso. Life and Art. New York, Icon, 1994

-De Riquer, Borja (Et alt.) Modernisme i modernistes. Barcelona, Lunwerg 2001

-García de Carpi, Lucía (Et alt.). El surrealismo en España. Exhibition catalogue, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, 1995 (Spanish-English edition)

- García, Josep Miquel. From Gaudí to Tàpies: Catalan Masters of the 20th Century. Barcelona, Generalitat de Catalunya, 1996

-Harris, Derek (Ed.). The Spanish Avant-Garde. Manchester and New York, Manchester University Press, 1995

-Homage to Barcelona. The city and its Art, 1888-1936. Exhibition catalogue, Hayward Gallery, London, 1985

-Licht, Fred. Goya. The Origins of Modern Temper in Art. London, 1979

-Nash, Steven A. (Ed.) Picasso and the War Years, 1937-1945. New York, Thames and Hudson, 1998

-Ocaña, María Teresa (Dir.) Picasso and Els 4 Gats: the Early Years in Turn-of-the-Century Barcelona. Boston, 1996

-Peel, E (Ed.): The Painter Joaquin Sorolla. New York, IBM Gallery of Science and Art, 1989

-Pérez Sánchez,A., and E. Sayre (Eds.) Goya and the Spirit of Enlightenment. Exhibition catalogue, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1989

-Richardson, John A Life of Picasso. With the collaboration of Marilyn McCully, London, Jonathan Cape 1991

-Tomlinson, Janis A.: Goya in the Twightlight of Enlightenment. New Haven and London, 1992

Additional Bibliography in Spanish:

-Bozal, Valeriano. Pintura y Escultura Españolas del siglo XX. (2 vols.). Madrid, Espasa Calpe, 1995

-Abrantes, R., Fernández, A. and S. Manzarbeitia. Arte español para extranjeros. Hondarribia (Guipuzcoa), Nerea, 1999

28-09-2005