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...the resultant dictatorial regime (1939-1975). (1) Artists, arts administrators and propagandists drew from a range of national myths, historic events, religious iconography and art history while learning lessons from Spain's brief experience of modern electoral propaganda during the Second Republic of 1931 to 1936, and from the mass propaganda of its allies: Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany. Threatened by the chaotic war-time situation and by the conflicting aims of the factions that supported the military uprising, Franco appropriated elements from the visual traditions of each of the groups that supported the uprising--the Military, monarchists, Carlists, conservative Catholics and Falange party members--using them to foster historical parallels between past and present that were favorable to his claims to power.
Art historians writing after Franco's death in 1975 have dismissed as derivative and formally mediocre the majority of the images (posters, photographs and paintings) of the dictator produced during his long regime. However, if we take into account the larger system to which they belonged--a larger and self-reinforcing system of reiterated slogans and symbols, circulating in a variety of contexts aimed at diverse audiences: newspapers, magazines, radio, newsreels, novels, history books, school curricula, architectural monuments, religious rituals, advertising, among others--it becomes clear that these images should be studied carefully in order to understand the messages they were intended to convey. In the case of the posters, as we will see, these formed a crucial part of the creation of a climate of fear both in areas held by the rebel forces, and even more so in newly-occupied areas. It should not be forgotten that the threats against those who opposed Franco that were implicit in the posters' slogans and images were carried out during the war and until Franco's death. (2)
Franco was not the leader of the July 18, 1936 military uprising against the Republican government and was not asked to join the Junta de Defensa Nacional, led by General Miguel Cabanellas, until August of 1936. In the first months of the war, the military commanders in the so-called "Nationalist" zone, and the various militias formed by political groups that existed before the war, had their own propaganda organizations. As commander of the war's southern forces, Franco's earliest director of propaganda was his colleague and founder of the Spanish Foreign Legion, Jose Milan Astray (Preston, Franco 170). On August 15, Franco upstaged the other members of the Junta when he made the red and yellow monarchical flag the official emblem of all rebel-held areas (Preston, Franco 167). In 1931, following the departure of King Alfonso XIII and declaration of a Republic, a new flag consisting of red, yellow and purple stripes was adopted. Franco's return to the traditional flag was the first indication of his strategy to appropriate symbols of royal power and authority to create an image of cohesion and promote his self-appointed role as savior of Spain from the Popular Front Republican government and its allies. In adopting this flag, he appeased many supporters of the military rising, whose ultimate aim was the restoration of the monarchy.
Photographs were the quickest and most economical means to disseminate images of Franco widely in formats such as postcards and posters. As he faced a constant struggle to maintain control over the competing factions that supported the uprising, a unified propaganda line that appropriated elements from the political and religious programs of the population began to be devised. Franco's propaganda staff faced the challenging task of fashioning for him the image of an imposing and majestic absolute dictator. They had in their favor the fact that he had earned public recognition (including articles in wide-circulation newspapers and illustrated weeklies) as a skilled military leader during ten years spent fighting to maintain Spain's colonial territories in North Africa. Awarded several military distinctions for his service in the Regulares Indigenas (the native police force in Spain's African colonies) and Spain's Foreign Legion, be became the youngest general in Europe in 1926 (Preston, Franco 48). In 1934, with a right wing government in power, the Ministry of War chose Franco to coordinate military efforts to suppress a miner's strike and leftist revolutionary uprising in Asturias (101).
When it became evident that the uprising was becoming a protracted military struggle, Franco turned this to his advantage, taking credit for the "liberation" of Toledo's Alcazar on September 27, 1936. The Alcazar, then used as an infantry academy (which Franco attended) was an emblematic site of Spanish military history built as a palace and military fortress during the reigns of Charles V and Philip II. Although the city of Toledo remained in Republican hands after the right-wing uprising, a group of military and civilian supporters of the rebels remained in the Alcazar. There they resisted 68 days of Republican attacks until rebel armies took over the city. Franco was named Head of State on October 1, 1936 and established his first provisional government, the Junta Tecnica de Estado (Technical state Junta) in Burgos. Millan Astray became director of the State Delegation for Press and Propaganda, which formed part of the General Secretariat of the Head of State. This was an indication of the new government's aim to centrally control propaganda. The nascent dictatorship's slogan became "Una Patria, Un Estado, Un Caudillo" ("One Fatherland, One State, One Leader") (Preston, Comrades! 26).
Although the rebels faced a chronic scarcity of paper supplies and the main centers of graphic production were in Republican hands, skilled photographers and artists remained in rebel-held territory to develop Franco's image as a leader. The majority of portraits were in three-quarter or bust formats. In a montage (fig. 1) published in Estampas de la Guerra, a commemorative pamphlet issued by Franco's Delegation of Press and Propaganda in 1937 that employed a photograph by Jalon Angel, Franco is shown in a three-quarter pose, clad in his general's uniform, sash and holding a baton. Rendered monumental by the placement of his photograph over the map of Spain, he literally embodies national unity as his figure creates a nexus between the words Fatherland, State and Leader. The society portraitist Jalon Angel had established a studio in Zaragoza in 1926 and was known both for his sophisticated use of artificial lighting and soft focus as well as his knowledge of the latest German and American photographic technology (Romero 28-29). (3) Particularly during the early years of the regime, he was Franco's preferred photographer, his portraits were reproduced in postcards, posters, books, and periodicals (Romero 34).
[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]
Franco's brother-in-law, Ramon Serrano Suner, who had arrived in Salamanca after escaping Madrid in February of 1937, implemented propaganda initiatives and political strategies that greatly furthered Franco's consolidation of power. The first of these was the Unification Decree of April 19, 1937, which ordered the immediate fusion of all groups supporting the rebellion into a single party--the Falange Espanola Tradicionalista y de las JONS--under Franco's military and political leadership (Payne 18). Secret negotiations and political purges did not fully suppress dissent among sectors reluctant to compromise their independence and ideals. This was particularly true of members of the Falange, a fascist party founded by Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera in 1933, and the Carlists. The Carlists resented having to renounce their call for a re-establishment of the monarchy. Both groups posed a threat to...
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