Andalusia - Art and Culture

Art and Culture

The culture of Andalusia has been shaped by its particular history and geography, as well as its complex flows of population. Andalusia has been home to a succession of peoples and civilizations, many very different from one another, each impacting the settled inhabitants. The ancient Iberians were followed by Celts, Phoenicians and other Eastern Mediterranean traders, Romans, Visigoths, North African Muslims, and the Castilians and other Spanish of the Reconquista, not to mention the Jews, Romani people, and others who have lived in Andalusia in large numbers at one or another time, without ever being the holders of power. All have affected Andalusian identity and culture, which was already delineated in the 19th century and diffused widely in the literary and pictorial genre of the costumbrismo andaluz.

In the 19th century, Andalusian culture came to be widely viewed as the Spanish culture par excellence, in part thanks to the perceptions of romantic travellers. In the words of Ortega y Gasset:

Andalusia, which has never shown the swagger nor petulancy of particularism; that has never pretended to the status of a State apart, is, of all the Spanish regions, the one that possesses a culture most radically its own. Throughout the 19th century, Spain has submitted itself to the hegemonic influence of Andalusia. That century began with the Cádiz Cortes; it ended with the assassination of Cánovas del Castillo, malagueño, and the exaltation of Silvela, no less malagueño. The dominant ideas have an Andalusian accent. One paints Andalusia: a roof-terrace, some flowerpots, blue sky. One reads southern authors. One speaks at all times of the "land of the Most Holy Virgin Mary". The thief from the Sierra Morena and the smuggler are national heroes. All Spain feels its existence justified by the honor of having on its flanks the Andalusian piece of the planet. Around 1900, like so many other things, this changes. The North sits up. —Ortega y Gasset, Teoría de Andalucía, 1927