page_title: Marian Vayreda i Vila
section_title: Reception and legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Marian Vayreda i Vila / Reception and legacy
caption_attribution_description: Català: Casa Vayreda (Olot) This is a photo of a building indexed in the Catalan heritage register as Bé Cultural d'Interès Local (BCIL) under the reference IPA-10177.
context_page_description: Marian Vayreda i Vila was a Carlist soldier and activist, a painter and a Catalan writer. He is recognized as key representative of Catalan cultural renaissance of the late 19th century. He is particularly acknowledged for his 1904 novel, La Punyalada, declared one of the best Catalan literary works of all time. Politically Vayreda is considered a typical case of an identity located in-between Carlism and emerging Spain's peripheral nationalisms.
context_section_description: Some sources claim that Vayreda was disappointed by limited success of his paintings; displayed at Catalan and Madrid galleries, they enjoyed polite acknowledgement falling short of universal acclaim, let alone fame. He gained some popularity with stories published in the 1890s, but it was Recorts and Sanch nova which earned him general recognition shortly before death. Vayreda did not live to see success of La Punyalada both among the readers and the critics. Riding the wave of growing Catalanism in first decades of the 20th century the novel was declared its iconic literature, though second edition appeared as late as 1921. Vayreda was acknowledged in history of Catalan literature during the Republic, though it is not clear how many of his paintings were burnt down during takeover of Olot by Republican militia in the summer of 1936. He became sort of officially celebrated artist during Francoism, which maintained silence on his Catalan penchant but emphasized the Traditionalist leaning instead. Punyalada enjoyed its third edition in 1947 and Recorts the second one in 1950. Centenary of his birth was observed in 1953: Olot declared him hijo ilustre and staged appropriate sessions, while periodicals – including the Falangist ¡Arriba España! – published homage articles. In the 1960s a hall in the Olot ajuntament building was named after Vayreda and in 1966 the council established Mariano Vayreda literary prize; some cities honored him with appropriate street names.
  Vayreda received sort of literary canonization after the fall of Francoism, the process commenced by História de la literatura catalana of Riquer, Comas and Molas and continued in numerous academic books, scholarly reviews and popular press items. Since 1980 La Punyalada was published 7 times and served as script for a 1990 movie, which became sort of an icon itself. A tourist trail following La Punyalada plot was marked in the Pyrenees and Vayreda's life was even treated in a children's cartoon. He remains portrayed as one of the all-time masters of Catalan literature, the process climaxing in massive centenary celebrations – covering both his literary works and paintings – of 2003. A dedicated study of his elevation process suggests that it was a perfect example of critical literary reception serving as a function of ideological scheme, namely as agent of Catalan nation-building. 
  Scholarly works on Vayreda's outlook as expressed in his art and political activities suggests that he can hardly be considered an obvious forerunner of Catalan nationalism, that he can not be portrayed as example of a natural shift towards it, and that such approach involves a not insignificant dose of distortion. In an alternative perspective offered, emergent modern Catalanism was a competitive vision that he actually opposed. Considered within this framework, L’Escola d’Olot ultimately failed when attempting to implant its vision of Catalunya muntanyenca, the rural land of mountains and forests, entrenched in pairalismo culture and spiritually set between Jansenism, Traditionalism and Enlightenment. Most critics referred to it as idealized, paternalistic utopia, Arcadia or paradise lost, though some claim to have found sadomasochist and homosexual threads in his writings.
caption: Casa Vayreda in Olot
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 5D Mark II", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "ACDSee Pro 6", "Image DateTime": "2014:06:29 18:11:45", "Image Artist": "Photographer:Amador Alvarez", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image Copyright": "Copyright: Amador Alvarez (amadalvarez@yahoo.es)", "Image ExifOffset": "323", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "42243", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/200", "EXIF FNumber": "10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "800", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2014:06:29 13:46:40", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2014:06:29 13:46:40", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "61/8", "EXIF ApertureValue": "53/8", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "28", "EXIF SubSecTime": "508", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "18", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "18", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1800", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1200", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "42197", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "3861000/1459", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "1287000/479", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}