June 16, 2005

Global Seminars & Invited Speaker Series

SAN FERMIN: FIESTA, ART AND POSTER DESIGN

A vision of the fiesta: The San Fermin Posters

D. Ignacio J. Urricelqui Pacho.

The central topic of the lecture was the image of the fiesta during the last decades of the 19th century up to the present day through the Sanferminero poster. In addition to recognizing its use and function, Professor Ignacio J. Urricelqui highlighted the artistic value of the poster and proceeded to study it from a formal, thematic and iconographic point of view, taking as reference letter the period 1881-2005.

From a formal point of view, the evolution from the nineteenth-century poster, in which the text predominated and the image was reduced to specific spaces, always secondary, to the modern poster in which attention is focused on the image, with the text being reduced to the essential, with the exception of the 2005 poster, in which it has regained all its prominence.

With regard to the theme of the Sanferminero poster, it was possible to see a wide repertoire that made it possible to appreciate the different nuances of the fiesta, from the bullfighting spectacle, to the street party with the predominance of music, dance, and the presence of the giants, big-heads and kilikis. But, above all of these, the importance given to the running of the bulls was emphasized, without doubt, the topic par excellence of the San Fermin poster, much more so than San Fermin itself, whose image has hardly been treated, with the exception of some posters of the last few decades.

From an iconographic point of view, it was possible to verify the existence of certain posters that set guidelines that were later used by other poster designers, which has resulted in the configuration, over the centuries, of an expressly San Fermin poster, with its own characteristics that differentiate it from the rest of the contemporary festive posters.

Finally, the evolution of the Sanferminero poster was highlighted, highlighting five major moments. The first covers the final decades of the 19th century, showing a clear influence of the characteristic poster-program of the period, generally based on pre-designed images produced by the lithographic houses, especially the lithographic house of Eduardo Portabella in Zaragoza. The second period corresponds to the Civil War, when the City Council called the San Fermin poster competition for the elaboration of the sketches. This is the period of essential names of our poster design, among which the Navarrese Javier Ciga stands out, without forgetting other firms such as Jesús Basiano, Enrique Zubiri, Gregorio Urzainki, Leocadio Muro Urriza, José Luis Elvira, etc. After the civil war, another period of great boom began, in which the work of names such as Pedro Lozano de Sotés, Pedro Martín Balda and Crispín Martínez, among others, should be highlighted. The fourth period corresponds to the photographic posters of the 1960s and 1970s by Rafael Bozano and Nicolás Ardanaz, among others. Finally, the last decades have given more attention to the graphic design and photomontage, highlighting, among others, the work of Xavier Idoate or Mikel Urmeneta.