Art and the Poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca

Federico Garcia Lorca is one of Spain’s best known poets and now a popular icon.  Born in 1898, he lived the first ten years of his life in Fuente Vaqueros, which is close to Granada in Southern Spain.  He moved to Madrid when he was in his early twenties and  joined a group of avant-garde artists that included Salvador Dali and Luis Buñuel.  The group, collectively known as the “Generation of  1927,” introduced Lorca to Surrealism, a movement that would greatly influence his writing and poetry.

Lorca was an active socialist and his controversial political views as well as his generally bohemian attitudes would ultimately cost him his life and during the Spanish Civil War,  Lorca was captured by Franco’s Nationalist Army and executed.   His works, and even his existence, remained a taboo subject in Spain for nearly four decades after his death. However as a result, Lorca has become not only famous for his exemplary poetry, but for his martyrdom at the hands of a fascist dictatorship. His works were suppressed in Spain for many years but have had a monumental influence on the poets and authors of Latin America and the world over and he is often credited with being the first author to introduce Surrealism into literature. His work has a lasting impact on Spanish poetry and Lorca has influenced many of my abstract paintings with his interesting use of words, often written in a surrealist or abstract voice.  Here are two of my abstract paintings complete with Lorca’s words.

Echo

The flower of dawn has already opened

(Do you recall the depths of evening?)

The spikenard moon pours down its cold scent.

(Do you remember the gaze of August?)

 

The Cheating Mirror

Green branch barren of rhythm and bird.

Echo of a sob with no pain or lips.

Man and Woods.

I shed tears beside the salt sea.

In my pupils are two seas singing.