5748 x 3820 px | 48,7 x 32,3 cm | 19,2 x 12,7 inches | 300dpi
Data acquisizione:
17 aprile 2015
Ubicazione:
San Isidro, Orihuela, Alicante Province, Spain
Altre informazioni:
A collective tribute and monument to the Orihuela born poet Miguel Hernández, the first murals were painted in San Isidro in May 1976, six months after the death of General Francisco Franco. A member of the communist party, Hernández had campaigned for the Republican party during the Spanish Civil War. After the surrender, he was arrested several times for his anti-fascist sympathies and finally sentenced to death. Perhaps concerned about creating a martyr for the people, Franco commuted the sentence to 30 years imprisonment. Much of Hernández’ best known pieces of work were written while he was in prison but the harsh conditions were to still his hands forever far earlier than his term. In 1942 at the age of 31, he succumbed to tuberculosis and died in a prison in Alicante.Although Franco reinstated the monarchy before he died, emotions and tensions were still high in 1976; no-one could be certain whether dictatorial rule would be prolonged or democracy prevail. San Isidro was a marginalized, poor barrio to the northwest of Orihuela which, notwithstanding the poverty, was celebrating the local fiesta in May. Writers, artists and thinkers descended on San Isidro to pay tribute to the Orihuela poet who had been born into poverty and spent his childhood as a goatherd. As some of the artists started to paint murals, officers of the Guardia Civil attempted to prevent the anarchistic activity and this visual expression of liberty. But the momentum of the group was not to be derailed and the streets were brought alive by the painters’ brushes. In 2012, Orihuela’s Town Hall commemorated the 70th anniversary of Hernández’ death by restoring the original murals and launching a programme for new ones to be painted. That programme has continued annually since then, when for a few days, painters appear in the streets of San Isidro. The barrio is still one of the poorest in Orihuela, but the residents are rightly proud of their murals and the messages that they convey.
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