Cronopios are beings imagined by the writer Julio Cortázar.
Cronopio is a concept created by the Argentine writer Julio Cortázar ( 1914 – 1984 ). Cronopios are green and humid beings , according to the imagination of the author of “Rayuela” , who never gave too many details about the physical appearance of these characters .
The first time Cortázar used the term was in an article published in 1952 , when he reviewed a concert that Louis Armstrong gave in Paris . The writer came up with the idea when, in the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in the French capital, he had a vision of green balloons floating around the hall .
The concept of cronopios remained in the mind of Cortázar , who wrote a series of stories and poems with these characters as protagonists that appeared in the book “Historias de cronopios y de famas” , published in 1962 .
Cronopios in the work of Cortázar
Pure genius for many and overrated stories for others, this work has become one of the most significant of those that make up Julio Cortázar's bibliography.
The work is framed within the surrealist genre, in which the author, in his own way, reviews the most important social actors of the 1950s and 1960s in Argentina. That is, the bourgeoisie.
In an authentic, critical and scathing way, he describes the upper class, which is made up of, among other things, impoverished people who, however, in order to appear, continue to lead the same lifestyle they presumably had before. This situation gives rise to some really funny and absurd moments.
“The Particular and the Universal”, “Preserving Memories”, “Inconveniences in Public Services” or “Preamble to the Instructions for Winding the Clock” are some of the stories that shape this work.
Several of Cortázar's stories have cronopios as protagonists.
Main features
According to what can be seen in their texts , cronopios are idealistic, sensitive and naive creatures . In this way, they differ from other beings imagined by the writer, such as famas (pretentious and formal) and esperanzas (boring and ignorant).
Cortázar was able to clarify that the term cronopio has nothing to do with time , which could be inferred from the prefix chrono. Simply, the Argentine assured, it was a word that occurred to him and that seemed appropriate to name these beings.
Over the years, both Cortázar and his friends and followers began to use the notion of cronopio as an adjective or an honorific treatment applied to people they admired. Thus, Cortázar is often called El Cronopio Mayor .
Artists who were inspired by cronopios
The creation of the term cronopio gave rise to many other artists from that time onwards being inspired by it. A good example of this is the painter Eva Holz, originally from Chile, who created several paintings about this strange being.
There is also the writer Luis María Pescetti who has a work entitled “What would happen if a pair of cronopios traveled along a highway?”
The music also includes various songs about the beings invented by Cortázar, such as “Canción del Cronopio” by the rock band Los Brujos.