El Rinconcillo

Rarely has such a small space generated so many groundbreaking ideas or given rise to so much literature and studies as the literary gathering of El Rinconcillo, a few square meters under the staircase leading to the upper floor of the Alameda cafe, an establishment now demolished whose lot is now occupied, just as it was, by the restaurant Chikito. Its founders were the young editors of the magazine Andalucía 1915, an imitation of España 1915, a magazine launched in Madrid to highlight the change of era that took place after the Great War.

The participants in the gathering chose the Café Alameda as the venue, a place frequented by disparate people who varied according to the time of day. At the back of the café, behind the small stage where a string quintet with piano performed, there was “a large corner with two or three tables with comfortable couches against the wall” in which the young frequenters of the café set up their headquarters. After a failed attempt to baptize the nook as La Araña, it finally became what it was, El Rinconcillo.

In the early years, Federico was the only musician in the gathering, until 1918 when he surprised everyone with his first book, ‘Impressions and Landscapes’, whose writing he kept secret.

The current entrance is facing the same direction as the original, and the owners have placed a sculpture of Lorca in the space where the lighthearted members of the tertulia used to sit. In summer, the meeting expanded under the gigantic trees of the Campillo Square that have survived all the urban development.

El Rinconcilllo was founded as a consequence of the decline of the Centro Artístico, from which its younger members had separated due to its “provincialism” and its attachment to the more traditionalist plastic arts. Its most glorious period took place between 1915 and 1922; from then on, its commitment declined as many of the attendees left Granada. Some of its last members founded in 1926 the Ateneo de Granada , which followed the path of audacity against the pomp of the Centro Artístico.

Proof of the open and universal spirit of the rinconcillistas is that two of its most active members soon ended up in Paris: Manuel Ángeles Ortiz, a disciple of Picasso, and Ismael González de la Serna. Soon Federico and Francisco García Lorca or the language academic Melchor Fernández Almagro were also to go to Madrid.

Although the list is long and flexible, the following were part of the gathering, either as regular or casual members: the brothers Federico and Francisco García Lorca, Francisco Soriano Lapresa (who acted as coordinator), Manuel de Falla (musician), Hermenegildo Lanz (designer and teacher), Juan Cristóbal (sculptor), José Mora Guarnido (diplomat), Constantino Ruiz Carnero (editor of El Defensor). Miguel Pizarro, José Navarro (Arabist), Fernando de los Ríos (politician and professor), Juan José Santa Cruz (engineer) and Antonio Gallego Burín (politician). Federico was, in the early years, the only musician in the tertulia, until in 1918 he surprised everyone with his first book, Impressions and Landscapes, the writing of which he kept secret.

The regular rinconcillistas were joined at the meetings by various artists visiting Granada, among them the musicians Arthur Rubinstein and Wanda Landowska and the writers H. G. Wells and Ruyard Kipling. The spirit of the tertulia members gave rise to such important projects as the Flamenco Song Contest of 1922 in the Plaza de los Aljibes, the tributes to Isaac Albéniz in the Alhambra, and the placing of plaques to Gautier, Glinka and Debussy.