par Pascal Rousseau
1995, in La Revue des revues no 20
Art Journals in Catalonia during the first world war
During the four years of the first world war, Catalonia, protected by Spanish neutrality and in a flourishing phase of « regeneration », saw twelve new art reviews come into being, all written in Catalan. Initially supportive of the aesthetics of the noncentrist movement (Revista Nova, Veil I Non, La Revista), from 1917 these reviews turned their attention to more radical programmes, building bridges towards Italian Futurism or French Cubism (Troços, Un Enemic del Poble, Arc Voltaic, L’Instant). This open approach to international avant-garde trends encouraged by the presence of many refugee artists in Barcelona during the conflicts – was nevertheless riddled with ambiguities, emanating largely from the Idea Catalana. What had to be reconciled were models of change which delineated an authentic cultural renovation and the clauses of a new classical order. This contradiction is expressed in the term « moderate modernity », which in the reviews took the form of a stylistic eclecticism, fertile terrain for the future emergence of surrealism in Catalonia.