Inmaculada Julián
The Graphic Representation of Women (1936-1938)
Translated by Niamh Collins
On a graphical level, the period between 1936-1938 provides us with a series of highly significant details in relation to how women were perceived. Women who, due to their awareness of the Spanish Civil War, were briefly and partially freed from their gender-specific chores so that they could occupy, be it professionally or politically, roles equal to those held by men. Suffice to say the names of two significant women that fought from different ideological stances: politicians Dolores Ibárruri and Federica Montseny. Outside of Spain, the situation was different due to varying parameters in other countries, in which the names of Lou Andreas Salomé, Alma MahlerGropius-Werfel, and Natalia Gontcharova, amongst others, appear. Additionally, there were also the artists that placed themselves on equal footing with their male peers, which is the case for Sophie Taueber-Arp and Hanna Höch.
This work will not be based on great women, but rather on the typologies that are depicted in war posters or in artists’ drawings and prints. Thus, it focuses on unknown women and representations of particular moments of the past. Graphic representations that had to fulfil a specific and definite function: to persuade women from different backgrounds to engage in battle.
This analysis must be addressed using iconographical assumptions in order to examine the iconic prototypes at hand. In this way, the linguistic binomial of graphic representation and reality can be approached; a binomial which refers to patterns of behaviour, everyday life, personalities, and rules of value, amongst other things.
The depicted figures must be considered as outlines of the value systems of a certain society, which in this particular case, is a society that remained loyal to the Second Spanish Republic in times of war during the 1930s. These figures are women that initially fought alongside men, but later replaced them in the rearguard, in the manufacturing industry, and in teaching. One notable fact is that sexual characteristics are barely defined in these representations—aside from a few exceptions—and if they are, they are defined with very clear intentions. The Manichean practice of categorising something into good and bad is also prominent. In this context, it is evident that the Republican women that fought and strived for the Spanish Revolution and for the Second Spanish Republic were the good, long-suffering and self-sacrificing women. With regard to women’s activity throughout the war period, this has endured a significant modification in terms of image. Even up until the establishment of the Republican army, the Ejército Popular, at the end of 1936, milicianas [militiawomen] dressed as men featured in posters, who, despite their feminine features, adopted war-like attitudes of being a heroine and appeared equal to men. Such equality reflected the rights that had been timidly achieved by the Spanish Constitution of 1931, but which were still largely ignored by political parties of the time.
From 1937 onwards, women were painted as hardworking and loyal guardians of the Second Spanish Republic. They were called upon to collaborate with governmental entities and political parties, as well as various women’s associations. The most notable of these groups is undoubtedly Mujeres Libres [Free Women], a virtually autonomous organisation linked to the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo - Federación Anarquista Ibérica (CNTFAI) [National Confederation of Labour - Iberian Anarchist Federation], which has been extensively-studied by Dr. Mary Nash.1 In Catalonia, the Unió de Dones de Catalunya [Catalonian Women’s Union] led by politician Dolores Bargalló was also important, much like the exemplary Agrupación de Mujeres Antifascistas [Association of Anti-fascist Women] in Madrid.
The female image was often and evidently used as an advertising strategy in order to call the population to arms and to provoke feelings of guilt and shame. Additionally, it was the subject of numerous exhibitions, activity days and weeks, and conferences. Notable examples are the 1937 week of women’s activities, Setmana d’Activitats Femenines, and the woman and child exhibition, Exposició de la Dona i l’infant , whereby the main themes were both the role of the mother and the protection of children’s rights. The advertisement poster for the Setmana d’Activitats Femenines is the work of Sim and it shows the profile of a profoundly beautiful woman, free from any connection to war 2 (Fig. 1).
Fig. 1. Sim (José Luis Rey Vila), Setmana d’activitats femenines (La dona i la Revolució): 8 al 14 febrer 1937 [Week of Women’s Activities (The Woman and the Revolution: 8–14 February 1937], 1937. Parliament of Catalonia / Donation by Josep Fornas
The majority of posters aimed towards women were carried out by political bodies, meaning that they were created “outside of” feminist organisations, whereas those created by the organisation Mujeres Libres were considered to be “from the inside.” Consequently, they are not greatly directed at the issue of war, but rather at the rehabilitation and dignification of women.
Visible prototypes
As previously mentioned, this typology began to change from December 1936, when the Ejército Popular was created. In view of both this fact and the needs of the war, two groups can be established and are further subdivided below:
1) Milicianas
2) Women in the rearguard
Within the first group, the following can be identified:
a) Women calling others to arms
b) Milicianas marching
c) Warnings against fascism
Within the second group, the aforementioned division between good and bad can be applied, through which the following subclassification is created:
Good representations:
a) Persuasive women
b) Hard-working women
c) Mothers and wives
d) Professional women
e) Substitutes and collaborative women
Bad representations:
a) Prostitutes
b) Spies
Milicianas
Even in the early days of the war, the streets were covered in posters; a sight that inspired poet Agustí Batra to write an article entitled ‘Les parets parlen’3 [The Walls Talk], in which he said:
“Today the walls not only have ears – as the cliché goes – but they also learned to reason and to scream” 4
The slogan conveyed by the posters was a call to arms for both men and women alike. Within these posters, the image of milicianas from different parties and trade union organisations appears prominently; milicianas who acquired great prestige, particularly in the city of Barcelona, which was home to the headquarters of anarchist organisation Mujeres Libres.
Fig 3. Cristóbal Arteche, Les milicies us necessiten! [The Militias Need You!], 1936. The Pavelló de la República CRAI Library (University of Barcelona)
Fig. 4. Anonymous, El Frente Popular: 20 de julio de 1936 [The Popular Front: 20 July 1936], 1936. The Nicolau Primitiu Valencian Library - BV Graphic Collection (Digital version available at BIVALDI)
The miliciana is generally pictured at the forefront wearing overalls and bearing arms. In the posters, she is placed on equal footing with her male counterpart and is even given greater prominence, undoubtedly due to the fact that she is a woman.
Milicianas were comparable to heroines, similar to the legendary war heroine, Agustina de Aragón. Others who were glorified in this way are Rosario the Dynamiter, who is known thanks to Miguel Hernández’s poem, and Lina Odena, who died on the Gaudix front line. The following verses are taken from Miguel Hernández’s poem, originally written in Spanish:
Rosario, the dynamiter
Concealed in your beautiful palm Lies a slender bomb
A wild beast with an igniter. Nobody perceives her as a fighter Nor do they see her despair Which she harbours there, In her heart of glass and exploded shell,
Anxious for the enemy’s knell, And with a thirst for warfare.5
The posters created in 1936 were representative of this prototype and they were used in the call for people to enlist in militias and fight against fascism. They are similar to the posters published by the CNT-FAI in Valencia (Fig. 2), in which the milicianas firing their guns stand out amongst the combat unit, whereas in others they are being called to enlist in the name of freedom. In Arteche’s poster, Les milicies us necessiten! [The Militias Need You!] (Fig. 3), a female fighter is at the forefront, dressed in overalls and holding a rifle high in her left hand, whilst she points her right index finger in a clear act of persuasion. Militias can be seen marching with their flags behind her. This is one of the few non-photographic posters whereby it is possible to distinguish the face of a model; a model that has similar features to one of the “sex symbols” of the time, Marlene Dietrich. The same model was also found in the magazine Crónica, in a special issue dedicated to women in the spring of 19346 , for which Arteche portrayed various types of working and liberated women using different models. The poster El Frente Popular [The Popular Front] (Fig. 4), which contains some lyrics from the Spanish rendition of ‘The Internationale’, depicts a woman covered solely by tulle, sitting above a crowd of workers, with the chimneys of Barcelona in the background. She appears to imitate the models within E. Delacroix’s La Liberté guidant le peuple [Liberty Leading the People], A.
Steinlen’s interpretation of La Commune [Commune], and G. Scott’s 1916 work Pour le drapeau! Pour la victoire! [For the Flag! For Victory!].
The figure of the miliciana was also subject to coverage by the European leftwing press, something that John Hearfields’s photomontages, published in 1936 in A.I.Z 7, can testify.
Women in the rearguard
A common reality in times of war is that women take on positions or act as substitutes within the workforce for the men who are fighting on the front line. In her work Histoire et sociologie du travail féminin [History and Sociology of Feminine Work], Evelyne Sullerot points out that: Women, with regards to work, are somewhat “beneficiaries” of war. Who hasn’t contemplated those lively images that our televisions show us from time to time, when they rummage through the archives and show women with their heavy buns and corset-strangled waists driving trams, fixing up howitzers, assembling rifles, and harvesting crops? Some ladies abandoned their large sun hats and furs in order to don a nurse’s uniform. Young girls manufactured explosives. We were at war...8
The radio was extremely efficient in transmitting new slogans to Republican women, who overnight, left behind their roles as heroines and abandoned their rifles for the machinery industry.
A coordinated struggle therefore prevailed: men on the front line, and women in the rearguard, as well as on the fields, in factories, on trams, in schools, and in tailoring workshops. Happening alongside all of this were the campaigns fighting against the cold due to the low temperatures, and as a result, women were required to make coats, scarves, and jumpers, amongst other things.
Calls to this new situation were made in the publications of Mujeres de Madrid and Companya, within bodies of the Spanish Communist Party, and in the magazine of the same name as its organisation, Mujeres Libres.
The following quotation is taken from the Spanish Communist Party:
We tell the men that they are going to fight, and that in the meantime, their food and clothes are guaranteed, their children will be cared for, and that our efforts in the rearguard, which are improving by the day, will serve as the secure foundation of the victory in the vanguard.9
In turn, the organisation Mujeres Libres published the following text, from which this fragment has been extracted:
… She did not hesitate, and determinedly, she took to the streets to fight alongside workmen, regardless if they were comrades or not. And she offered up her
Fig. 5. Rafael Tona, Camarada! tu, al front, jo, al treball: Diada Internacional de la Dona, 8 de març 1938 , [Comrade! You on the Front Line, Me at Work: International Women’s Day, 8 March 1938], 1938. The Pavelló de la República CRAI Library (University of Barcelona) © R.Tona 1938.
young life, brimming with juvenile dreams during the early days of the heroic struggle, in which every man was a hero and every woman was equivalent to a man. However, it is not all about courage in this long and continuous battle between two classes that despise each other. And the woman, realising this, came to her senses and understood that the meaningless street scraps were a far cry from the methodical, consistent and distressing trench warfare. Understanding this and recognising her own value as a woman, she opted to swap out her rifle for the machinery industry, and her fighting spirit for the gentleness of her womanly soul 10
Logically, this type of work contributed to a shift from the traditional maternal role of a woman.
Mujeres Libres published a pamphlet in which, amongst other things, it stated:
For the time being, woman, you will have to stay away from your children. Circumstantially, whilst the war comes to an end and the new progressive order begins, your children must stay at nursery or at the children’s camps in the countryside and near the sea. Your children will not lack the care that you could not give them, nor the education that they need. Whilst we reach maximum production and install new agricultural and industrial machines, school libraries are opening up for the labourers. Our arms are not enough for the effort and time required; only our efficiency counts. And you, woman, alongside us, are paving the way for a new and true world . . . The best mother in the world is not the one who holds her child tightly to her chest, but rather the one who helps cultivate a new world for them 11
There was hope for a new world; a world which would collapse with the triumph of General Franco in April 1939. In line with this optimism is Rafael Tona’s poster, Camarada! Tu, al front, jo al treball12 [Comrade! You on the Front Line, Me at Work] (Fig. 5), in which a woman points out to a man that in that very moment, his duty is to fight. Meanwhile, judging by the image, she will work in the war industry. The image of the woman
Fig. 6. Carles Fontseré, Per als germans del front: Dones! Treballeu , [For the Brothers on the Front Line. Women! Work], 1936. The Pavelló de la República CRAI Library (University of Barcelona)
Fig. 7. E. Vicente, ¡En el frente hace frío! Tus manos en retaguardia pueden evitarlo. ¡Mujer trabaja! [It is Cold on the Front Line, Your Hands in the Rearguard Can Help Avoid it. Woman Work!], ca. 1936–1939. Ibán Ramón Archive
here portrays women as a source of strength, thus distancing from the classic model of a woman. There is also a collection of ten unpublished war drawings by Antoni Clavé and Martí Bas which serve as a tribute to the soldiers of the Second Spanish Republic. In one of them, a militiaman can be seen washing his clothes with the help of a woman.
There is a series of posters aimed at highlighting the dichotomy between peace and war, which are additionally dedicated to the theme of healthcare. In these posters, the image of a woman appears at the top, almost as a symbol, and is idealised and embellished due to her assumed role. Her beauty provides an effective contrast to the images of pain, and sometimes those of death, which is depicted in the rest of the composition.
Women here were also represented as mothers and wives; no longer as substitutes for men, but rather as those in charge of household tasks, of helping the fighters, and even for upholding the national economy through saving money. One example of this was by knitting jumpers for soldiers on the front line. In such posters, the women are extraordinarily feminine and delicate, particularly in Carles Fontseré’s works, such as Per als germans del front: Dones! Treballeu [For the Brothers on the Front Line. Women! Work] (Fig. 6). In both this poster, and E. Vicente’s ¡En el frente hace frío! Tus manos en retaguardia pueden evitarlo. ¡Mujer trabaja! [It is Cold on the Front Line, Your Hands in the Rearguard Can Help Avoid it. Woman Work!] (Fig. 7), two opposing images are presented: a soldier, and a woman knitting. The images within E. Vicente’s poster can be traced back to the distinct aesthetic of the Futurist movement given the succession of shots of the same figure.
Fig. 10. Martí Bas, Defensa’t contra l’enemic que no es veu, vacuna’t! [Defend Yourself Against the Invisible Enemy, Get Vaccinated!], ca. 19361939. Parliament of Catalonia / Donation by Josep Fornas.
Another theme for which the female figure is used is the denunciation of crimes committed by fascists, such as murder, rape, and bombings. It is essential to mention the names of Castelao, Alloza and Clavé, amongst others, with regard to this type of graphic work. In these works, the female figure is humanised, yet also made out to be more pitiful. This representation follows sculptural examples from the Renaissance period and, together with the past, demonstrates the obvious connections with works by Proudhon, K. Köllwitz and World War posters. In this regard, women feature as protagonists in works dedicated to the subject of aid in Madrid and the Basque Country, as well as assistance to refugees, in which the flight of mothers carrying their children in their arms is portrayed with intense dramatism. Curiously, in 1937, Oskar Kokoschka produced a print with the inscription Pomozte baskickým detem! [Help the Basque Children!] (Fig. 8).
The composition of the posters devoted to the issue of helping refugees demonstrate the clear connection to the Baroque works dedicated to the series of Our Lady of Mercy. A notable example is A. García’s poster, S.R.I.
Ajudeu les víctimes del feixisme [S.R.I. Help the Victims of Fascism] (Fig. 9), in which an angel-like nurse figure, as well as people suffering from illness, are visible and the symbol of peace is personified by a dove.
Women also appeared in hygiene and vaccination campaigns, as seen in Carles Fontseré’s poster, La higiene del milícia es l’arma que tots necessiten [Militia Hygiene is the Weapon that Everybody Needs] and Martí Bas’ Defensa’t contra l’enemic que no es veu, vacuna’t! [Defend Yourself Against the Invisible Enemy, Get Vaccinated!] (Fig. 10). In both works, the danger of infections and viruses is foreshadowed with the appearance of a snake: another symbol of fascism.
The prototypes analysed in this section refer to the “positive heroines”, such as the fighters who first fought with weapons but later fought in an extremely effective sector of the war, known as the rearguard.
Fig. 11. Ramón Casas, Sífilis [Syphilis], 1900. The National Art Museum of Catalonia, acquisition from The Plandiura Collection, 1903. © The National Art Museum of Catalonia, Barcelona, 2021
