Delegitimizing Spanish Pictorial Stereotypes: From Equipo Crónica to Antonio Saura

Abstract

From restrictive cultural and artistic regulations, imposed by Spanish Francoism, a groups of artists begun a process of pictorial illegitimatizations towards a series of cultural Spanish stereotypes. Among these artists, there is the group Equipo Cronica, who used features of Social Realism in a battle for satirizing and ridiculing Spanish culture during the 60s, radically defended by Franco’s regime. Crónica performed cultural parodies against myths like El Greco, Velázquez, Rivera, Zurbarán and Goya. On the other hand, with a language close to Neo figurative art that appeared by the ends of the 50s, Antonio Saura created his Imaginary Portraits with an imaginative violence against these same stereotypes.