An Introduction to Catalan Music and Dance

In order to examine how Picasso’s Cubist art was influenced by Catalonia’s contemporary music, an initial overview of the Catalan culture is necessary. It is documented that Picasso spent significant portions of the 1911 and 1912 summers and a third of 1913 in Céret (Cowling et. al.). Céret is located in southern France, relatively close to Barcelona and the French-Spanish border and considered part of the Spanish Catalan region. Kachur, in his study “Picasso, Popular Music and Collage Cubism,� described the village as a “Catalan cultural center [that] offered Picasso the opportunity of feeling as if he were in Spain without actually crossing the border� (Kachur 254). Céret gave Picasso the convenience of not having to leave France to experience the Spanish culture. By living in the village for sustained amounts of time, Picasso was able to immerse himself in this culture – providing an opportunity for him to form relationships with the musicians and to witness the performance of Catalan music and dance, especially the sardana (Fabre 160). The most popular dance of Catalonia, the sardana was composed of an unusual combination of memorized complexity and spontaneity. On one hand, there was a definite technique needed to be mastered and a rhythmical responsibility required by the dancers. Buettner, in his study “Catalonia and the Early Musical Subjects of Braque and Picasso,� quoted writer Henry Pépratx-Saisset:
“To dance [the sardana] properly it is necessary to count, or at least to know the basic rules of the dance, to know what to count, how to count, why to count, and to know by observing in the first part of the dance what succession [of steps] can be presented� (Qtd. Buettner 113-114). It was a calculated dance in which the dancers had to be constantly aware of the beat and what was allowed within that rhythm. However, opposing this mathematical involvement, the structure of the dance allowed improvisation and spontaneity, and modifications and creativity were encouraged (Pérez 41). This combination paralleled a new kind of Impressionism: it was an art form open to the masses yet restricted by certain rules that perhaps directed the creativity of the dance.