Art and Social Change in Spain (1885-1910)

From 1885 onwards Spain underwent a series of significant social changes that were reflected in art in its different manifestations. Themes and subjects now broadened to encompass all aspects of life. Some of them, such as factory labour, illness, social marginalisation, prostitution and protest movements, had previously been uncommon. All now appeared with an unprecedented objectivity, based on a naturalism in which painting competed with photography, the latter medium employing greater veracity to portray the same subjects, as did cinematography following its invention in 1895.

Social painting, like sculpture, enjoyed a preeminence comparable to that previously possessed by history painting; many works obtained prizes at the National Fine Art Exhibitions and were acquired by the State. Two of them, by Luis Jiménez Aranda and Joaquín Sorolla, even obtained the highest honour at the Universal Exhibitions in Paris in 1889 and 1900, respectively.

At the same time, new options of a more expressive type emerged which depicted these subjects with a critical eye in works of smaller format, often on paper. Darío de Regoyos inaugurated a trend continued by Ignacio Zuloaga and José Gutiérrez Solana. Other innovative artists, such as Isidre Nonell, Pablo Gargallo, Pablo Picasso and Juan Gris, definitively transformed the approach to social themes.

Agriculture and livestock farming continued to be both the principal source of wealth at this period and the main employment sector. As a subject for depiction it had a long tradition in art. Painters and sculptors consciously moved away from the earlier picturesque genre mode, using large-scale formats and a more precise naturalist style already employed by various French artists such as Jules Breton (still within the context of Realism), Jules Bastien-Lepage and Léon Lhermitte.

Agricultural subjects were depicted in Spain as extensive scenes with life-size figures, sometimes in triptych format, as in the work of Enrique Martínez Cubells. The efforts of men and women working alongside each other were presented with a dignified appearance, on occasions slightly idealised. Joaquín Sorolla went further in his quest for greater veracity through the use of an exceptionally free technique. Darío de Regoyos decisively rejected both directions, employing an expressive, anti-naturalist simplification to reveal the most sombre side of Spanish reality.

Francisco Iturrino and Darío de Regoyos’s graphic work reveals an overtly modern approach to the depiction of rural labours and one involving a critical vision expressed through the harshness of the landscape, the suffering of the animals and the distortion of the human figures. In his “Basque Album” Regoyos focused on local ethnographic characteristics, depicted in lithographs of an expressive simplification that makes them extremely innovative.

In photography, the most amenable vision of the countryside, in some cases interpreted with a Pictorialist approach, presented scenes characterised by a timeless, bucolic happiness, as in the work of Arturo Truan, Julio García de la Puente and Fernando Cevallos de León. Alongside this, a more objective approach is evident in the depiction of the work of cork cutters in the Sierra de Cádiz by Francisco Hernández-Rubio and in stereoscopic photographic plates.

The industrial sector expanded in Spain at this period, with increasing numbers of workers employed. Among them were women and children who were paid far less than men. Various artists, including Santiago Rusiñol, produced early depictions of child labour in the textile and metalworking industries. Scenes of different activities in workshops and factories led artists to study their interiors. Influenced by photography, they captured the size of these spaces through oblique compositions which accentuated depth and introduced a sense of drama. The precise depiction of the machinery and tools emphasised the realism in the portrayal of these types of work, never previously depicted in this manner, while the figures of the workers assumed a heroic aspect.

In contrast, artists such as Darío de Regoyos reveal a Post-Impressionist vision in simple, frontal compositions executed with lively colours and a direct brushstroke. The work of Pablo Gargallo also reveals an aesthetic simplification that anticipates a new direction in sculpture.

Developments in lithography and other graphic media encouraged the greater use of the poster as an advertising medium by a wide range of businesses including industrial manufacturers. The latter frequently commissioned prestigious artists who produced high quality creations, notably in the context of Catalan Modernismo. Artists made the preliminary designs, such as the one by Manuel Benedito for the Unión Española de Explosivos, which were then reproduced in poster form. They featured workers or depictions of factories, sometimes with allegories, as in the example by Ramon Casas. The most dramatic aspects of industrial labour were revealed through the medium of etching, its expressive capacity based on the gradation of tones of black evident in Men laying Tarmac by Ricardo Baroja.

Due to its technical capabilities photography provided extremely precise records of factory labour, seen here in works by Edmundo Lacazette and Julio Peinado in Asturias, Luis Rodríguez Alonso in Palencia, Francisco Fernández Trujillo in the shipyards of Cadiz and José Gómez de la Carrera in Cuba.

Artists depicted women’s growing presence in the world of work. Although they did not undertake the hardest or most dangerous jobs, women had always participated in the tasks of agriculture and fishing. Laureà Barrau’s paintings, for example, show them weeding. Female employment in the primary sector only declined after 1900 with their gradual incorporation into craft activities, shown in Gilders by Manuel Cusí, and industrial manufacturing. With regard to the latter, in 1883 the Commission for Social Reform recommended that women should not undertake the heaviest work. Reality, however, was different and not only women but also girls were engaged in the textile industry among others, as portrayed by Joan Planella. Women also undertook other hard tasks just as pulling barges with a tow rope, recorded in a painting by Anselmo Guinea. Following a period in Paris, Guinea’s work revealed French influence, which is also evident in a different, more modern way in Juli González’s fisherwoman.

Traditional female occupations provided the subject matter for a large number of lithographs and etchings, often with a social emphasis that went beyond the mere depiction of these activities. This is the case with Joaquim Sunyer’s etching of an urban washerwoman, a subject with a very defined tradition since the work of Honoré Daumier. Almost ethnographic in nature are the depictions of women collecting seaweed by Tomás Campuzano from his series of etchings “Images of the Cantabrian Coast”, and selling sardines by Darío de Regoyos, a lithograph from his “Basque Album”. Both depicting age-old female activities, the first is a naturalistic portrayal and the second an extremely original one.

Female labours of this type were very precisely represented in photography through images of washerwomen, seamstresses and dressmakers, some images even capturing a sense of movement, as in Asturian Peasants in the Museo Sorolla. Female participation in industrial work is also extremely well documented in the photographs taken by Julio Peinado in Gijón and the one by Francisco Hernández-Rubio in Santander.

The Constitution of 1876 established Catholicism as the official State religion. Supported by Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, the Church had a powerful influence on all sectors of society despite the gradual emergence of secular thought, the basis of Regenerationism. The rites of the Sacraments (Examination of Conscience by Ramon Casas), charitable works and medical assistance (Salus infirmorum by Luis Menéndez Pidal), Easter week processions (by Darío de Regoyos and José Gutiérrez Solana) and the offering of ex-votos (The Promise. Asturias by Ventura Álvarez Sala) were subjects frequently depicted by artists. The conservative trend, typified by Menéndez Pidal, should be distinguished from the critical approach evident in the work of Regoyos and Gutiérrez Solana, for whom religion was inseparable from the most antiquated Spain and literally opposed to progression (as seen in Good Friday in Castile by Regoyos). Particularly interesting is The Cathedral of the Poor by Joaquim Mir, which shows the unique circumstance of the construction of the most important church of the period, the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.

Despite the spread of secular thought, the religiosity of the Spanish population remained present in all spheres. The Church was responsible for both education and social care, undertaken by some of the religious Orders, while also collaborating with the civil authorities in numerous events such as the inauguration of railway lines. In turn, most religious ceremonies, such as masses and processions, were veritable social encounters, as numerous photographs record in detail. The Pictorialist approach evident in some of these images, such as the example by José Ortiz Echagüe, reveals the growing ascendency of this other art form. In contrast, the processions in Seville photographed by Juan Barrera could have provided inspiration for painters.

The expressive potential of graphic techniques such as drawing, pastel and watercolour as well as etching, made them appropriate media for showing the most archaic, oppressive and caricatural aspects of religious practices, evident in the examples by Darío de Regoyos, Evaristo Valle and Ricardo Baroja.

The fight against specific diseases, particularly infectious ones, led to social action involving informational campaigns aimed at the general public. These were based on posters, such as the one by Ramon Casas targeting syphilis. Its preparatory design, expressed in a Symbolist style within an overall Modernismo, makes use of the archetype of a female temptress who transmits the disease.

Photographs provided useful assistance to medicine, as seen here in the images of patients with different diseases or amputations. Due to their objective precision photographs could go much further than paintings or sculptures, introducing into the field of representation aspects previously only depicted by the latter two artistic disciplines in relation to other narratives (such as miraculous healings).

Photographs also recorded vaccinations, operations, lectures and doctors’ rounds in hospitals and convalescent homes in compositions similar to those employed in painting. The mentally ill began to receive specialist treatment, as shown in the photograph of patients being taken to the hospital at Ciempozuelos.

Insufficient safeguarding of workers meant that workplace accidents were common in traditional labour activities such as fishing, as depicted by Joaquín Sorolla in And they still say Fish is expensive! This was also the case with the new activities relating to public projects arising from increased construction, shown in A tragic Event by José Jiménez Aranda. In contrast to the drama of the few earlier examples we now encounter an objective approach which in the case of Jiménez Aranda’s scene even omits the injured worker in order to focus on the different reactions of the passers-by and the urban space in which the lamentable event has taken place.

Accidents were not properly covered until 1900 when the employer’s responsibility and the right to compensation was established. Soon after, the Provincial Government of Vizcaya organised a competition on this theme. A notable entry was Aurelio Arteta’s An Accident, which expressed the epic of work in a heroic tone frequently encountered in literature of this period.

The dramatic nature of workplace accidents, their seemingly chance, unexpected nature and their capacity to arouse the reader’s empathy and compassion made them one of the most favoured subjects in the illustrated magazines that became extremely popular in Spain from the last decade of the 19^th century. The need to offer visual records of these events led to the use of different types of drawn images. Some were based on objective documents such as photographs or sketches made in situ. Others, such as those extensively produced by Vicente Cutanda, were imaginative recreations of the event, albeit based on the intention to achieve a naturalistic objectivity.

In a more direct manner and one closer to reality, photography provided images of different disasters, including ships exploding, such as the steamship “Cabo Machichaco” in Santander, captured by Pablo Isidro Duomarco and Pascual Urtasun, fires, collapsing buildings and derailments. Following the introduction of photogravure into the illustrated press, this technique became more widely used.

The increasing organisation of the working class with the aim of defending its labour rights led to major strikes in the most industrialised parts of Spain. These were depicted in works by Vicente Cutanda and José Uría who, like painters in other countries, emphasised the radicalism of the conflicts and the heroic epic of the worker. As a result, repression and death appear as possible consequences of the strikes. Artists heightened the drama of the event portrayed by setting the scene in the actual spaces of the workshop or factory, which they studied objectively in order to make their depictions as realistic as possible. Other painters, such as Lluís Graner, showed secret meetings as well as clashes with the forces of order, as did Antonio Fillol.

Among the different social movements, Anarchism aroused concern and interest due to the virulent nature of its actions and the extent of the acceptance of its ideas, which were well received by some intellectuals and artists. Nonetheless, this ideology was frequently condemned for its subversive aims.

The interest aroused by anarchist activities led some painters to focus on them. Santiago Rusiñol drew portraits of the anarchists involved in the bomb attack on the Liceo in Barcelona, revealing an interest in recording their facial features. The movement’s supposed activities, such as those attributed to the “Black Hand” in Andalusia, and the punishments meted out to them were subsequently depicted by Xavier Gosé, while Ricard Opisso recorded their public rallies. The desire to illustrate the special editions which Republican and workers’ publications devoted to the First of May from 1890 onwards led to the commissioning of artists who had depicted subjects of workers and labour, such as Vicente Cutanda. Associated with Republicanism at this period, Joaquín Sorolla designed the masthead of the newspaper El Pueblo, founded by his friend Vicente Blasco Ibáñez.

Rallies, demonstrations, barricades (during the so-called “Tragic Week”), strikes and attacks reached a large public through photography, which offered the most accurate images. In the case of one photograph by Luis Marín we even see the corpse of the perpetrator of the assassination of José Canalejas.

Around 1885, 71% of the Spanish population was illiterate. The Constitution of 1876 had stipulated that education was to be based on Catholic doctrine at a time when State education was not sufficiently available. The Church largely assumed this responsibility through numerous religious foundations, in addition to caring for orphans on the initiative of some members of the clergy. While children learned through play, depicted in José Jiménez Aranda’s painting, and in contact with nature, as promoted by the Institución Libre de Enseñanza, education was essentially based on learning by rote, as depicted by Ignacio Pinazo. Women were also educated to a limited extent, including art training.

One sector of primary education, particularly in Andalusia, was entrusted to the traditional Escuelas de amiga (schools run by women), where working women could leave their children. These schools are the subject of paintings by Domingo Muñoz and Julio Romero de Torres, the latter from an innovative viewpoint.

In Spain and its overseas territories education essentially depended on the State and on various religious Orders. School was frequently an institution characterised by a repressive drive for uniformity in a cheerless environment, evoked by Ricardo Baroja’s etching, from which children only escaped through play.

The most valuable educational approaches arose from private initiatives. In 1870 Fernando de Castro founded the Asociación para la Enseñanza de la Mujer, which was pioneering in its modern treatment of female education. Associated with it was the Institución Libre de Enseñanza, founded in 1876, which promoted an integrated type of education inspired by British and German models, as well as contact with nature through its school colonies or camps. The latter were central to the Escola del Bosc, set up in the Montjuïc Park in Barcelona and captured in Frederic Ballell’s photographs. This new way of understanding education, directly related to hygienist trends, contributed to changing some aspects of the official education system over the following decades. Other types of non-official teaching existed, offered in studios and academies where women were increasingly present.