Strenae (Jun 2014)
La chambre d’enfant chez les illustrateurs espagnols : un espace magique ? (1874-1986)
Abstract
This paper aims to explore nursery representations in Spanish art in the first half of the twentieth century, undoubtably the most fertile period in terms of images of childhood and youth material culture. While the historical reality of the nursery has been recorded in Spain since the 17th century, it was not until the last third of the 19th century that this space appeared in paintings and drawings among a heterogeneous group of artists, especially in the Catalan bourgeoisie, whose depictions were characterized by a "Mediterranean" look, and an avant-garde, romantic mythologizing of childhood.These representations are often the result of an autobiographical experience, linked to the artist's paternity or to his personal view of his family environment. However, they allowed the birth of a new system of representation, fed by folklore, fairy tales and religious imaginary, especially those related to gifts given at Christmas and the Epiphany. It is then that the intimate space of the child's room becomes the place of numerous supernatural characters, which is to say, a true space of visitation.Our analysis is based on a case study of works by Francesc Soler Rovirosa, Apel-les Mestres, Joaquín Sorolla, Julio Borrell Plà, Lola Anglada and Mercè Llimona, among others. This corpus of pictorial and illustrated works is unpublished or little known, even in Spain, revealing that the artistic mediums in this theme experienced a progressive shift from the canvas to illustrations in children's publications, between 1890 and 1950. This phenomenon also led to the success of these imaginary images, which first came about at the heart of a bourgeois culture influenced by European romanticism, and then spread to the working classes at the dawn of the 20th century. Even though realistic representations of the children's room continue to be found in this period, the predominant view of the artists discussed here allows us to understand how the children's room in Spain constitutes a very particular scenography of "magic." This space, until then known through the experiences of only a few painters, became a true allegorical topos that has not ceased to spread in today’s art and children's books.
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