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Modernisme-"modernism"-was the word Catalans used to denote the architectural style, and more

broadly the whole literary, musical, and visual-arts culture, of the period 1890-1910.

Whatever else Modernisme meant the first thing it stood for was moral collapse.

Social structure

PaintingSubversive architecture

Question for Robert Hughes, The Feast of Modernity, pp. 374-411, pp. 425-448.

1. Describe the difference between the attitudes of the financial elite and the

professional classes toward Madrid? Why were professionals the motor force

behind political catalanism?

Being of provincial origns, such men had absorbed the conservative,

anti-Madrid values of1 deep Catalunya. One of the few exceptions was the architect

Domeneo6 i Montaner, who was born in Barcelona-but he had aesthetic as weiJ as

political reasons for holding strong Catalan convictions.

The countryside towns had less interaction with other parts of Spain, and weremore inclined to produce fervent Catalan nationalists.

Much of the professional class had been raised in the country and had since

moved to Barcelona to study and practice.

Such deep tremors in the culture of Barcelona were not, however, often felt in the

well-upholstered purlieus of the Eixample, among its risen middle-c1ass families.

There, al! social effort was dedicated to the cult oftranquillity, not modernist anxiety.

The head of the household, whom we may cal! Senyor Puig, ruled the domestic roost

absolutely.

2. Describe Prat de la Ribas ideas about the industrial family. What were

their strengths and weaknesses?

3. Is there a moral to the story of Jacint Verdaguer?

4. Describe the belief systems and contradictions of upper-class Barcelonese (gent

de b).

Arranged marriages, husband has a lot of free time out of the house,

patriarchal, Catholic,

5. Describe the multiple tensions inherent in late nineteenth-century Barcelona?

6. What were the central ideas belying Catalan modernisme?

7. In what way did the citys modernist painters (Picasso, Casas, Rusiol) differ

from its modernist architects?

Casas: Social Concerns

Runyol: Art for arts sake, not concerned with politics.

Is Picasso part of modernisme?

8. What are some differences between the Renaixena and Modernisme

movements?

R: Romantic, M: Open to Europe9. What was the importance of thePalau de la Msica?

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Who was the architect? Domenech.

10. In what way was modernism reflective of an era?

11. What do you think was the relationship between modernism and Catalannationalism?

These artists are attempting to change society through their work, and

make Catalonia a society on-par with the European powers of the time. From imaginative

styles to a rejection of bourgeois values, everything was intentionally and distinctly

Catalan.

12. Whats the difference between Modernism as we understand it in the US

andModernisme in Catalonia?

13. Who, of the three main Catalan modernista architects, in your opinion, best

defines the goals and styles of Catalan modernisme?Josep Puig I Cadalfalch: arguing that everything that was good in the Eu ropean

architecture of his day was local. Wanted to be Catalan, but not so much Modern.

(Fabrica Casaramona)

Lluis Domenech i Montaner:

Gaudi: Do Gauds religious views prevent him from fully embodying the

movement?