The avant-garde.
The word refers to a set of avant-garde artistic and literary movement that took place in Europe and America during the first third of the twentieth century.
The common denominator of the avant-garde is a break not only with the prior art and literature, but with all the Western aesthetic tradition.
The avant-garde emerged in a climate of dissatisfaction with the present at all levels (political, social, economic, artistic ...), which became acute after the atrocities of theFirst World War.
Although the various avant-garde movements have specific traits, they share some characteristics:
Antirealism. As a result of his disagreement with reality, leading the authors break with the idea of art and literature as imitation of the outside world.
Primitivism. The discontent and the historical evolution of the West produces a myth of primitive man, before the culture and civilization. Designers took their inspiration from the folk tradition or in the arts of primitive cultures considered.
lrracionalismo. Vanguards shared with the end of the century's rejection of reason and science as pillars of progress. They advocate airrational art, based on chance and the unconscious.
Thirst for originality. The authors seek to establish a cutting edge new art for a new time.




Vanguards in Europe
The major avant-garde movements affecting the European literatures are Futurism, Dadaism and Surrealism.
Futurism: Its basic feature is the exaltation
Vanguards in Spain
The initiator of the vanguards in Spain f ue Ramon Gomez de la Serna, creator of thegreguerias.
The greguerias are brief statements and resourceful. Its features are:
Use of unusual metaphors and other stylistic devices as personifications or puns.
Sense of humor.
Ultraism is a specific art movement of poetry in Castilian.
The poems ultraists avoid the direct expression of feelings and are generally cheerful tone, close to the greguerias Ramon Gomez de la Serna. The following characteristics: Influence of Futurism. Importance of the visual arrangement of words.Use of original metaphors. Removal of punctuation. The major growers of poetry ultraist were Guillermo de Torre, Rafael Cansinos, Assens and Gerardo Diego.