Resumen de La niña bonita: tradition and change in female allegories of the Second Spanish Republic
Luis F. Cuesta, Roberta L. Johnson
The republican movements in Spain from at least 1792 shortly after the French Revolution until 1939 when the Spanish Civil War ended employed female allegories to represent a potential or realized Spanish republic. The present article focuses on the images of women that represented the Second Spanish Republic from 1931 to 1939, although it refers to female allegories of the First Spanish Republic, which provided inspiration for some of the symbols and designs adopted in the Second Republic. We particularly note the transformation in meaning of some of the icons such as the Phrygian bonnet, the turreted crown, the lion, and Christian and Masonic symbols. While the potential for progress and modernization under the Second Republic was an important theme of the female allegories, these are often rooted in familiar images that derive from classical dress, monarchical traditions, and Christianity. These eclectic allegories attempted to appeal to the heterogeneous population that could potentially support the Second Spanish Republic.
