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Catalan modernism (also known as modernisme) is an urban and bourgeois architectural style that developed in Catalonia, especially in Barcelona, in the last decades of the XIXth century and the beginning of the XXth. Although modernism as such was an extended trend during those years in the whole of Europe or even in some points of America, in Catalonia it had a proper personality, a strong expansion and a very deep development.
It arose as a reaction to the Revolution Industrial´s own architectural style, soberly and boring, with the idea of giving preeminence to aesthetics and imagination. In this way, the architects of this time introduced new ways not acceptable previously.
The principal innovation of this style relapses into the use of materials of construction (that mixes old and new) and, especially, into the whimsical forms of the buildings and its façades for the most part been inspired by nature. This way, the decoration is habitual by means of figures of animals (at times, fantasy), coloured ceramics and structures of forged iron with vegetable reminiscences.
As previously mentioned it is a question of an architecture impelled by the Catalan bourgeoisie of the moment, which turned this new style into its route to show its wealth and its spirit of modernisation. Likewise, modernism was used as a way of reaffirming the Catalan identity, after a long period of decline.
Antoni Gaudí,
Josep Puig i Cadafalch and
Lluís Domènech i Montaner were three maximum exponents of this style, and their works (like the
Park Güell, the
Sagrada Família, the Batlló House, the Amatller House, the Sant Pau Hospital or the Palau of Catalan Music, between others), being the most representative.
Nevertheless, Catalan modernism did not limit itself to architecture, but it spread over to other arts, like sculpture, painting (for example the Blue and Rose periods of
Pablo Picasso), literature and music.
The magazine "Pèl i Ploma" was the platform of expression of the movement in Barcelona and the emblematic literary café "
Els quatre gats" (The Four Cats), placed in the Martí House, building of Puig i Cadafalch, in the center of the city, and meeting spot of many of its artists.
Modernism in the music Some of the musicians most representative of the modernist movement were:
Isaac Albéniz,
Enric Granados, Joan Lamote, Antoni Laporta i Astort, Apel•les Mestres, Lluís Millet, Enric Morera, Antoni Nicolau, Jaume Pahissa,
Felip Pedrell, Josep Ribas i Gabriel and Amadeu Vives.