Catalonia, european culture

From Ramon Llull to Eduardo Mendoza

Despite the existence of the moral prose of Ramon Llull back in the 13th century, it was not until the period of the Royal Chancellery that cultured Catalan was unified, experiencing its golden age in the 15th century: alongside Llull, the epic prose of the four great Chronicles made its presence felt, above all, the poetry of Ausias March and Tirant lo Blanc, the novel of chivalry by Joanot Martorell. The humanist movement pierced the lofty bubble and Catalan lost its courtly monopoly, falling low until the 18th century when there was a revival of Catalan national awareness which consolidated itself during the Renaissance: Aribau is the author of Oda a la Pàtria (1833). In the late 19th century, the Catalan language recovered the splendour and credit it enjoyed in the Middle ages due to a series of factors: the popular success of Verdaguer, the linguistic reforms and the aesthetic idealism of the modernist creators. This state of affairs, however, after a short span of time was radically transformed with the cataclysm of the Civil War: Franco's dictatorship banished Catalan from the publishing world and teaching of the language was prohibited. During this period the main body of Catalan literature found expression in poetry, underground, unpublished or exiled. The deep rooted lessons of Carner, Foix and Tiba are sources that have never since dried up: Brossa, Bonet, Ferrater, Gimferrer, Comadira, Bauçà and Casasses being the more visible faces. Parallel to this, shone the memorialistic prose of Gaziel, Pla, Sagarra, who also wrote fiction like Rodoreda or Espriu. Optimism returned with Democracy in the form of diverse literary and linguistic pathways: a fair number of writers born in Catalonia chose to write in Castillian Spanish for reasons totally unrelated to any affinity with the regime, such as Matute, Gil de Biedma, the Goytisolo brothers, Marsé, Vázquez Montalbán, Mendoza or Vila-Matas who share the literary stage with writers in Catalan such as Monzó, Moncada, Perpinyà, Palol, Porcel, Jòdar, Serra, Pagès, Baulenas and Mesquida.-

The Life and Miracles of the Language

Over the centuries, the Catalan language has led a cyclothymic existence, linked to the political vicissitudes of the country: moments of euphoria (that took the shape of important cultural influences all over the Mediterranean) and moments of depression when the language was persecuted and annihilated. All of this translated into a forceful presence in the Middle Ages (Ramon Llull being the first person to exalt it) and created absolute and sometimes equivocal terms during the Catalan Decline-from the 16th to the 18th century-or its Renaissance, in the 19th century. The 20th century unfurled with a paramount figure: Pompeu Fabra. He set phrase to the norms of orthography (1913) and wrote a Dictionary (1917). Francoism, after the Spanish Civil War of 1936, tried to wipe out the language with prohibitions and extermination strategies; the norms however, despite the difficulties, managed to settle into place and, in broad terms, Catalan continued to be used in civil society which, with the return of democracy, witnessed how the media and a special language policy helped consolidate it. The future however, is clouded with doubts: coexistence with Castillian Spanish and not always in conditions of equality, and the new immigrants, have led to many a catastrophic voice being raised. For those who prefer cold facts, Catalan is a language used by more than ten million speakers who live in Catalonia, Valencia, the Balearic Islands, the south of France, Andorra, and is also present in Alguer, in the island of Sardinia. For those who want to study it, please refer to the web site http://gencat.es//llengcat/sial/svcerca.asp.-

Architecture in Catalonia: a Crossroads of European Tendencies

Architecture in Catalonia, because of its geographical location, has evolved close on the heels of architectural evolution in the countries nearest to it: France, given its physical and cultural proximity, and Italy with which it shares the same Roman and Mediterranean roots. The Romanesque, Cistercian and Gothic styles had a considerable influence on Catalonia and in each case the interpretation made was decidedly its own. One of the most genuine contributions of Catalan architecture to the history of construction, the Catalan vault, comes in reality from Rousillon, although it was Josep Lluís Sert and Antoni Bonet Castellana who transmitted it to Le Corbusier in the period of modern architecture.

Ildefons Cerdà, in the mid 19th century, was one of the first big theoreticians and practitioners of the new science of urbanism, and at the end of the century, Antoni Gaudi became the most unique architect of Catalan architecture. He barely travelled, quite unlike his teachers and contemporaries, such as Elies Rogent, Lluís Domènech i Montaner, Josep Puig i Cadafalch. The second half of the 19th century was characterised by eclecticism.

Catalan architecture reached the height of its internationalism in the 1930s, during the Second Republic, and at the time of the GATCPAC (Group of Artists and Technicians of Catalonia for the Progress of Contemporary Architecture), reminiscent of Le Corbusier and, with few works, was close to the best architecture of the European avant-garde. From the end of the 1960s, the focal point of Catalan architecture shifted to North America.-

Catalan artists

Catalonia's contribution to the legacy of universal culture has been two periods of particularly creative splendour: the first, during the early Middle Ages with the exuberant blossoming of Romanesque art, monasteries, churches, hermitages and works of art; and the second, at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, in the years of modernism, which developed vigorously all over the region and shaped the physiognomy of Barcelona with an abundance of buildings unique in the world. Outstanding among them are those of Puig i Cadafalch and those of Gaudí.

In addition to these two great moments in time, the 20th century witnessed the birth of vibrant personalities in Catalonia, some of whom made their mark on the evolution of art in the 20th century: Mariano Fortuny, José María Sert, Dalí, Miró, conceivably the most important Catalan artist of the 20th century. Many of them pursued their careers in Paris and then returned home, in much the same way as Casas and Rusiñol before them at the beginning of the century; today the poles of attraction for Catalan artists have shifted to New York and Berlin.

In the early 1950s the group Dau al set was formed in Barcelona and included three of the most interesting figures of Spanish art of the second half of the century: Joan Ponç, Joan Brossa and Antoni Tàpies; the art of the latter being Catalonia's most recent contribution thus far to the established canon of contemporary art.-

Catalan Theatre: a mighty European vocation

During the Franco period, theatre and culture in general underwent ruthless censorship. The merest aspiration to Europeanism was considered an act of rebellion, and culture, a weapon against Francoism. This explains the need of the intellectuals to travel abroad and bring back prohibited novelties as contraband. Authors, actors, directors and pedagogues followed this course, which crystallized in the independent theatre with an anarchical, impulsive, Mediterranean spirit. Among others, we have Ricard Salvat and Fabià Puigserver. The latter fuelled the Teatre Lluire, a member of the European Theatre Union, which, with programmes that kept a keen track of the best repertoire of theatre worldwide, became the important reference in Catalonia.

Albert Boadella (in all likelihood the most relevant creator of the independent theatre) and Els Joglars, or Joan Font and the Comediants also favoured the pathway of Europeanism and in turn took the international leap. La Fura dels Baus that stirred up catalan theatre, followed suit in due course. Well into democracy, Josep Maria Flotats joined the scene, coming from the Comédie Française and promoting the National Theatre of Catalonia. Lluís Pasqual (one of the most international theatre figures on the Catalan stage, a director, among others, of the Odéon-Théâtre de L'Europe), Calixto Bieito and Sergi Belbel, belonging to the generation that came after the independent theatre, make up just the tip of the iceberg of a group of professionals raring to make Barcelona one of the theatre capitals of Europe.-

Traducció de Gemma Castellino