Auca (cartoon)
An auca (Catalan pronunciation: [ˈawkə]) is a genre of a story in pictures developed mainly in Catalonia.
Description
The auca was present in some other parts of Spain, even though it was most popular in Catalonia. It has a structure somewhat similar to comics, but has more rigid. The auca has a number of images that can be evenly divided by 4 (usually 48), all images are of the same size, all fit on one page, and there is a small piece of text, called rodolí (pronounced [ruðuˈli], plural rodolins) - underneath every image, usually in the Catalan language and since the 19th century also rhymed.
History
The auca began as a
In the 19th century the auca reached its artistic peak and developed into a complete art form and publishing niche. The themes of auca stories became more varied and included
The auca structure also inspired Santiago Rusiñol's play L'auca del senyor Esteve (Mr. Esteve's auca), a down-to-earth, often humorous, story about a business-oriented family who suddenly has to deal with the artistic orientation of the young heir.
Towards the end of the 19th century the auca genre began to wane. Many new aucas were simply repeating older themes. At that time, however, aucas were brought to Madrid, where they were positively met. A series of Castilian aucas called Aleluya (Hallelujah) were produced with themes of Catholic holidays.
In the 20th century the auca continued to be a unique Catalan way of expression. Newer aucas are being regularly produced by Catalan artists, incorporating newer artistic styles, but keeping the established form of 48 images with two or four lines of rhymed text.
Examples of aucas
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The Auca of the Sun and the Moon, Pere Abadal, 1676
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The Auca of Montserrat, 1923 - A 20th century auca with two-line rhymed rodolins.
Bibliography
- La Revue des revues. Maison des sciences de l'homme. 1988.
- Albert-Ilorca, Dominique (1988). L'imagerie catalane, lectures et rituels, catalogue de l'exposition de Carcassonne, Paris, Perpignan, Toulouse, Montpellier, Barcelone. GARAE-HESIODE. ISBN 9782906156135.
See also
External links
- "auca". Enciclopèdia Catalana (in Catalan). Retrieved 2008-10-16.
- rodolins.cat Archived 2008-10-24 at the Wayback Machine - a website about aucas (in Catalan)
- La paret de les auques - auques produced by the students of IES Pius Font i Quer school. (in Catalan)