Costumbrismo is a literary and artistic movement.
The notion of costumbrismo is used in the field of literature and the plastic arts . This is the name given to the current that is aimed at showing and describing the customs of a region .
A custom is a habit or tradition . It arises from an everyday or frequent way of acting; When custom is shared at a social level, it is constituted as a feature of a culture .
Characteristics of customs
Costumbrismo can be understood as a movement or a trend. Its main characteristic is that it reflects the customs of a society, thereby contributing to the dissemination of its folklore .
Writers and painters who subscribe to costumbrismo usually dedicate themselves to observing and portraying reality , especially that linked to customary or ancestral customs and practices.
What these artists do is represent traditional scenes from an area or a social group . The works , in this way, reflect some aspect of everyday life and are associated with the construction of collective identity.
The painters of costumbrismo portrayed traditional scenes.
Its origins
The origins of costumbrismo date back to the 19th century . Its emergence is related to the development of romanticism and the intention to preserve and recover traditions threatened by the migration of the rural population to the cities and by the development of the Industrial Revolution .
With points in common with realism , costumbrismo aims to create picturesque portraits. That is why he does not usually venture into social criticism. Its most important manifestations appear in Spanish literature developed in the mid- 1800s , a time that coincides with greater ease of travel thanks to new means of transportation.
From these more frequent transfers, various authors began to come into contact with customs from multiple places. These observations were reflected in texts in a picturesque and romantic way.
Beyond letters, costumbrismo also burst into engraving and painting . On the other hand, it transcended the Spanish borders and landed on the American continent, with relevant exponents of manners in countries such as Argentina , Colombia and Mexico , among others.
The objective of customs
Although it was not a uniform movement and each author had his own visions and positions , in a broad sense it can be said that costumbrismo pursued the vindication or description of customs that were at risk or that were even lost with the advances of technology. modernity .
Costumbrismo did not carry out a deep analysis or establish a judgment: it simply tried to reflect those traditions. The advances in science and the aforementioned Industrial Revolution led to notable changes in society, which is why writers and artists of customs tried to recover certain actions and behaviors that were beginning to fall into disuse or that soon ceased to be part of everyday life.
Literators such as Mariano José de Larra , Ramón de Mesonero Romanos , Esteban Echeverría , Alcides Arguedas , Jorge Isaacs and Emilio Rabasa appear among the references of costumbrismo in Spain and Latin America . If we focus on the plastic arts, names such as Manuel Cabral , Manuel Rodríguez de Guzmán and Leonardo Alenza y Nieto stand out.