The Modernist Worlds of Catalá and Ruelas

Abstract

Rosario Faraudo writes about the Mexican decadent painter Julio Ruelas and the Catalonian prose writer and poet “Victor Catalá” really named Caterina Albert. Since women have repeatedly been related to Nature, it may not be a coincidence that the natural world in Ruelas is barren. He very frequently uses hybridization in relation to feminity, which links him to the general attitude of his time; sphynx, sirens, serpents, cats and vampires abound in late XIX century European art. Catalá uses a similar narrative strategy in defining some of her characters, yet with a different orientation.