The birth of an aesthetic antifrancoist front: between abstraction and figuration

Abstract

This paper analyzes the appearance of the principal artistic movements that opened an aesthetic, social and political way against francoism in the Spain of the fifties. This meant an alternative to the aesthetic official discourse of the regime in Spain, represented by informalism. The study of the historical development of the former movements intends to show the links that existed between the main antifrancoist artistic activities: geometric abstraction and social realism, which are usually studied and presented separately. This allows a better understanding of the early collaboration of its members to build an aesthetic front against francoism. It is stated here that these initiatives had a richer and more complex sense, which reveals itself when they are analyzed as essential elements in the construction of the cultural frames of the antifrancoist social movements that began their struggle in the Spain of the fifties.