Abstract

The following article analyzes the novel El Artista Barquero o los cuatro cinco de Junio (1861), the last and least-studied work of fiction by Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda. We interpret this work as a Künstlerroman where the painter Huberto Robert’s coming-of-age is represented in three stages of artistic development that coincide with those Avellaneda describes in her essay, Situación actual del Artista (1860). These three stages—the abandonment of manual labor, the presence of patrons, and the consolidation of art and commerce—involve on the one hand, an individual search for language and modes of artistic expression and, on the other, a broader reflection on nineteenth-century Hispanic culture. The article analyzes how this double articulation of the Künstlerroman is marked by a feeling of nostalgia for structures of patronage and a Cuba of the past, which corresponds to the author’s own nostalgia, having lived so many years in Spain, far from her native island. Through an oblique projection of her own authorial figure in the character of Huberto Robert’s character, Avellaneda seeks to reflect on her own artistic career and legitimate her position as author.

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