Art and Politics and the Spanish Civil War: Joan Miro and Josep Maria Sert

The Spanish Civil War is of great personal interest to me, but, like many teachers, I often find myself in a struggle against the clock to teach it properly. In the past I have focused on causes and effects, and an analysis of Picasso's painting "Guernica." I invariably wish that I could do more. This school year I made the decision to dedicate more time to the topic, by featuring a thematic approach to art and politics that includes examples from the 1930s.

The artists Joan Miro and Jose Maria Sert supported opposing sides in the war. Both were Catalans by birth. Born about twenty years apart, both eventually made their way to Paris in the early decades of the 20^th Century, and became fixtures of the avant-garde. Sert painted sets for the Ballets Russes of Sergei Diaghilev. Miro pioneered the Surréaliste movement. Sert ultimately was hired in 1932 to paint a mural for 30 Rockefeller Center in New York after the Rockefeller family dismissed Diego Rivera for painting a mural that they deemed to be too overtly political. Five years later, Miro was asked by those organizing the Republic’s exhibition at the 1937 Paris World’s Fair to create a design promoting the Spanish Pavilion. Along with Picasso and the sculptor Alexander Calder, Miro was one of a number of artists whose creative contributions were more than art, they were expressions of solidarity with a government under siege. Sert, who was only just completing his series of murals for the League of Nations headquarters in Geneva, threw his support to the franquistas, lending both his talents and his prestige to the fascist side in the war. While Franco emerged victorious inside Spain; fascism in Europe and elsewhere was discredited and unfashionable. So, it would seem, was Sert.

What I’m curious about exploring with my European history students is the degree to which art is, or should be, political. And also, the degree to which an artist’s political views should color our understanding of, and appreciation for, their work. After all, Adolf Hitler was a watercolorist in Vienna before World War I and his subsequent political career. On the other hand, Edgar Degas was as an anti-Dreyfusard with publicly known anti-Semitic views. Should we reject his work too?

The Spanish Civil War is an excellent lens through which to teach these themes because of its overt enlistment of painters, writers, poets, and photographers as propagandists. A visual presentation that includes exposure to a larger body of work from both Miró and Sert, accompanied by text examining their lives and careers as a whole both before and after the war, can place a discussion in context. The question of whether artists should take sides, or whether they in fact have a choice, can focus this discussion. This topic should find a ready audience amongst teachers of European and American history, art history, and Spanish.