Os renovadores

 ( Spanish Art ) 

In the 19th century, some events led to a resurgence ( Rexurdimento), especially in poetry. Etnicidade e nacionalismo. GONZÁLEZ REBOREDO, Xosé In plastic arts, like in painting, there is an affinity for Romanticism and post-impressionist landscapes influenced by Cézanne. Among them there is a regionalist feeling for their , and some Galicians, like Valle-Inclán, accused the artistic primacy of the Madrid – Valencia axis inside Iberian Peninsule. Some of the most Galician promising artists died young and were called 'the Sick Generation'. "“Xeración doente”: Ovidio Murguía, Joaquín Vaamonde, Ramón Parada Justel e Jenaro Carrero" no Museo Provincial de Pontevedra.

Plastic artists born in the first decade of the century don't break with older artists, such as Díaz Baliño, Castelao or Asorey, but they try to value, renew and democratize Galician tradition. Writers and plastic artists gather around El Pueblo Gallego, which begins to publish graphic and written works in Spanish and Galician.

In 1921, Santiago Ramón y Cajal awarded Daniel Castelao a scholarship to learn about the avant-garde in Europe. He spent almost one year traveling and he published fragments of his travel diary in the magazine Nós:

Spanish people think that to be universal (...) we who make national art (of the Galician nation) are asked to 'kill the regional spirit' and be Spanish; now I ask: if you realize that art has no borders, it means that it is cosmopolitan. Why don't you ask us to 'kill the Spanish spirit'? Well then, if Spanish art can come out of Spain, so can Galician, Basque and Catalan art.

For him, art must be universal and cosmopolitan, but linked to the 'mother culture'. When he got in touch with the avant-garde art of Central Europe, he made some disqualifying comments about Picasso, who after his training in Galicia and Barcelona was developing Cubism in Paris. He preferred the Russian vanguards because they were "linked to the people". Later, he published an essay on Cubism, in which he became interested in its structuring of painting and reality, saying that the avant-garde could be "crazy, but not silly", and corresponds with his countryman of Rianxo, the poet Manuel Antonio, searching to renew art and seeking in its roots.

Carlos Maside was one of the group who traveled the most. His work was shown in the US by the Carnegie Institute, along with M. Mallo and A. Souto. In Paris, he saw pieces of Gauguin and Van Gogh, which influenced his work beyond the Cubism, Magic realism, and Expressionism, and the writings of Bauhaus professor Kandinsky. He also made graphic works for the Statute of Autonomy campaign. He helped form the Art Collection for the Seminar on Galician Studies, and suggested creating an Art Library to the City Council of Santiago. Unlike other artists who left their country, he stayed in inner exile. In Vigo, he made friends with younger artists like his nephew Xulio and Laxeiro.

Manuel Colmeiro was another artist who traveled a lot, which gave him both academic and self-taught training. After the war, he went into exile in Argentina, where he created murals in Galerías Pacífico. In exile, he interacted with artists like Seoane, Rafael Dieste, and Rafael Alberti.