A derradeira lección do mestre
A derradeira lección do Mestre, [The Master's Last Lesson], is probably the most emblematic drawing in the album Galicia Mártir (1937) and the best known of the thirty-one drawings that compose the three albums on the Spanish Civil War by the Galician artist and politician Alfonso Daniel Rodríguez Castelao.
In contrast to the line drawings he was accustomed to producing or those in Álbum Nós, which were intended to look like etchings, these are much more detailed, with gradations of grey and a sense of volume. Similarly to the ones in the album Atila en Galicia (1937), they show the harshness of the repression suffered by the people of this land with ideas contrary to those of the rebels. However, in the album Milicianos (1938), the artist pays homage to the fighters who defended the Republic.
The handwritten texts that accompany them are smaller than those he published in the press or the ones he produced for Álbum Nós, with the image itself taking on greater prominence.
Several drawings in Galicia Mártir include references to elements of the Galician landscape that the artist would never see again because of his exile, such as the trees in this drawing. They are similar to the ones in Álbum Nós, which heighten the dramatisation of the scene by showing their pruned branches.
In addition to his work as an artist and writer, Alfonso Daniel Rodríguez Castelao (Rianxo, 1886-Buenos Aires,1950) was intensely involved in political activity from 1931 onwards, which made him one of the leaders of the Partido Galeguista (Galicianist Nationalist Party). He was elected deputy in the 1931 and 1936 elections.
He was in Madrid when the military uprising against the constitutional government of the Republic took place on 18 July 1936. When the capital moved to Valencia, he settled there along with other republican artists. There, he put his artistic talent at the service of defending the Republic, creating in 1937 the ten drawings in the album Galicia Mártir and the other ten that compose the Atila en Galicia album.
In New York, where he had gone with the political propaganda aim of seeking help for the Spanish Republic, he published his third war album, Milicianos, in 1938. It was from this city that he finally left in 1940 for Argentina, where he died on 7th January 1950, after intense political activity that had made him the leading figure of Galician nationalism in exile.
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Of the works Castelao produced in New York, Cuba and Argentina (where he travelled and lived as a result of the defeat suffered by the constitutional government of the Republic in the Spanish Civil War) the Museum has some extraordinary series such as the Dibujos de negros [Drawings of Black People], created on the Caribbean island and in the city of skyscrapers, or the four large drawings of blind people in the set he entitled Os meus compañeiros [My Companions]. Mention must also be made of other creations and various testimonies of his activity and political thought, especially the original manuscript of his book Sempre en Galiza [Always in Galicia].