A code for survive intolerance.The vegetable world in the homoerotic iconography of Gregorio Prieto’s work

Abstract

During the first decades of the twentieth century, much of the revision of Greco-Latin homoerotic symbols was linked to poets and painters who, by cultural heritage or by active search, expressed sexual diversity in their work. Social intolerance led to the need to maintain a parallel code characterized by expression through metaphors and iconographic elements of double meaning. The Generation of ‘27 was the clearest exponent of this phenomenon in Spain and the most representative visual artist who used this code was Gregorio Prieto. The study focuses on the analysis of symbols from nature and the plant world (fruits, flowers, trees and other plants) in Western culture. The work of Gregorio Prieto has been analyzed and this iconographic analysis has been carried out using primary and secondary bibliographic sources. The results allow us to interpret the veiled message that the painter wanted to communicate gives the keys and can be extrapolated to other plastic and literary artists of the time such as Lorca, Cernuda and Aleixandre, who had inherited the western homoerotic tradition.