Two Gustavo Adoldo Bécquer's graphological sketches

Abstract

The present article compiles two Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer's graphological “sketches”. The first one is an expert calligraphic investi-gation on the autograph graphite that Bécquer wrote on the frieze over the door of San Clemente's Church, in Toledo, together with his friend Ildefonso Núñez. The article not only traces in precedents Bécquer's steps in Toledo and the documentary historical tracks that refer to the mentioned graphite but also provides, as an unpublished ingredient, the exhaustive expert calligraphic study on authentication of authorship of this signature of the poet. For this study, the doubtful graphite of San Clemente's door has been compared with other undoubtful or unques-tionable autographs of the poet written throughout different moments of his life. The analysis has been carried out from the point of view of the “graphonomic” system, that compares variables of form, structure and movement, accomplishing a detailed follow-up of the graphical outline, and emphasizing in the particularities and singular alterations of every letter, as well as in the most personal gestures that, in an inevitable and unconscious form, identify the autograph as of hand of his author. The second sketch is a graphological study of Gustavo Adolfo's person-ality, based on his letters and autographs, from his youth until a few months before his death, in 1870. This second study is a portrait, a sketch of the native, of the most unknown Bécquer, who, in addition, as a great surprise of this authoress, knew and intuitively was user of the graphological science.