Dau-al-Set

Dau al Set - Catalan for the seventh face of the dice - was the first artistic movement to emerge in Spain after the Second World War, founded in Barcelona in September 1948 by the poet Joan Brossa with the painters Antoni Tàpies, Joan Ponç, Modest Cuixart, and Joan-Josep Tharrats and the philosopher Arnau Puig. Against the conservative culture of Francoist Spain, they revived the avant-garde through an art of dreams, magic, and inner exploration, blending Surrealist and Dadaist technique with esoteric imagery. From 1949 the group published its own journal in Catalan - the language banned under Franco - printed by Tharrats in small broadsheet runs. The journal appeared regularly until 1951 and fitfully to 1956 as members departed. Its nocturnal, hallucinatory idiom helped open the way for Spanish Informalism and kept a living avant-garde alive under dictatorship.

Defining characteristics

• Dark, nocturnal grounds lit by an eerie phosphorescent glow
• Dreamlike and magical imagery: monsters, demons, and alchemical symbols
• Dense, obsessive patterning and minute detail
• Grotesque, playful figures poised between the comic and the sinister
• Painting mixed with collage, illustration, and typographic play in the group's journal
• Automatic, improvisational handling drawn from Surrealist practice

Key figures

• Joan Brossa (1919-1998) — Poet who founded the group and shaped its magical, literary program
• Antoni Tàpies (1923-2012) — Klee-like nocturnal visions in his early work, later a leader of Spanish matter painting
• Joan Ponç (1928-1984) — Painter of demonic figures and hallucinatory monsters
• Modest Cuixart (1925-2019) — Painter of fantasy imagery drawn from German Expressionism and Miró
• Joan-Josep Tharrats (1918-2001) — Painter and printer who designed and published the group's journal

Example works

• Dau al Set (journal) — Dau al Set group, ed. Joan-Josep Tharrats (1949-1956)

Sources

• Dau-al-Set - Wikipedia encyclopedia

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