Art and Social Movements in Spain: 1888 - 1939

Catalog description

Course Description: This survey will examine the major artists and institutions that shaped the development of Spanish art from 1888, the date of Barcelona's Universal Exposition, to the end of the Spanish Civil War. The course takes as it's working model the question of art's relation to social movements, including: the rising tides of cultural and political nationalism in the Basque and Catalan regions; the Colonial Disaster of 1898 and the question of national regeneration; the impact of fin-de-siglo anarchist and worker's movements; the birth of authoritarian politics with the Dictatorship of Primo de Rivera; and the ideological chaos and social violence unleashed during the Spanish Civil War) Class sessions examine the complex roles played by some of Spain's most prominent artists and architects -- Antoni Gaudí, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Luis Buñuel, Josep Lluís Sert, and Salvador Dalí -- and their multivalent responses to modernization, political instability, and social praxis. The course is supplemented by regular visits to the Museo Nacional de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid's museum of modern art.