Eugeni d'Ors (Barcelona, 1881 - Vilanova i la Geltrú, 1954). Essayist, journalist, philosopher and art critic. His main contribution to Catalan literature is the Glosari(Glossary), a daily column which he signed under the pseudonym of "Xènius" in La Veu de Catalunya, where he presented a series of aesthetic, political and cultural theories which gave name and content to the movement of Noucentisme and which became the unavoidable reference for an entire generation of intellectuals. Some of these "gloses" (literally "ballads" but also referring to "glosses" (notes)) were collected in volumes like La Ben Plantada (Of Good Presence), of 1911, the title symbolising the ideal noucentista woman. In 1917 he was named director of Public Education of the Mancomunitat (association of Catalan municipalities) and was dismissed from the post three years later, following which he went to live in Madrid and wrote the rest of his work in Castilian. In 1936 he supported the uprising against the Republic and, in the midst of the Civil War, was named National Head of Fine Arts. He subsequently became on of the notable intellectuals of the Franco regime.



Web page: David Ventura-Marquié.
Up-date: Nausica Solà.
Translation: Julie Wark.