Postism (in Spanish Postismo) was a marginal literary and artistic movement whose name is a contraction of postsurrealismo ("post-surrealism"). As stated in the Second Manifesto, published in La Estafeta Literaria (special issue, 1946) and signed by Eduardo Chicharro Briones, Carlos Edmundo de Ory, and Silvano Sernesi.“Postismo”, TodaCultura, https://www.todacultura.com/movimientosartisticos/postismo.htm (accessed 23 Oct 2025).
The term was initially meant to signify "the -ism that comes after all -isms." with this denomination, the authors sought to express that their movement represented the synthesis of all previous avant-garde movements.Suárez-Chamorro, “Quién es SCH – La apuesta por las estéticas de vanguardia”, suarez-chamorro.org; “En un principio el Postismo quiso significar «el ismo que viene tras todos los ismos». Con esta denominación querían significar que este movimiento venía a ser la síntesis de todas las Vanguardias intelectuales, plásticas y literarias precedentes.”
Members
In Spain, alongside the Catalan movement Dau al set and the Aragonese group Pórtico, Postism was one of the few movements to embrace European avant-gardes after the Spanish Civil War.“Campo cerrado. Arte y poder en la posguerra española, 1939-1953”, catalogue of the exhibition at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid 2016, p. 148: “the dark, magical, irrational leanings of the new forms of art… groups such as Dau al Set in Barcelona, Pórtico in Zaragoza and Postismo advocated the recuperation of pre-war avant-gardes”.
It was mainly led by Carlos Edmundo de Ory (1923–2010) and Eduardo Chicharro Briones (1905–1964). Among its members at various times were Francisco Nieva (1924–2016), Ángel Crespo (1926–1995), Gloria Fuertes (1917–1998), Antonio Fernández Molina (1927–2005), Fernando Arrabal (born 1932), Antonio Beneyto (1934–2020), Gabino-Alejandro Carriedo (1923–1981), José Fernández-Arroyo (1928–2019), Félix Casanova de Ayala (1915–1990), Federico Muelas (1910–1974), Jesús Juan Garcés (1917–1983), and Carlos de la Rica (1929–1997).Pont, Jaume, El Postismo. Un movimiento estético-literario de vanguardia (Barcelona: Edicions del Mall, 1987), especially pp. […] (which list the founders as Eduardo Chicharro, Carlos Edmundo de Ory, Silvano Sernesi, and mention other associated figures such as Ángel Crespo, Gabino-Alejandro Carriedo, Félix Casanova de Ayala, Antonio Fernández Molina, Carlos de la Rica, José Fernández-Arroyo, Antonio Beneyto, Francisco Nieva).
Origins
Postism arose in Madrid in 1945 and remained active until around 1950. The publication of the Third Manifesto of Postism (1947) likely marked the beginning of its decline, brought on by literary incomprehension and ideological rigidity. The movement drew clear inspiration from French avant-garde currents such as Dada, from which Surrealism emerged. Silvano Sernesi, influenced by Futurism during his time in Rome, also shaped its outlook.Pont, Jaume, “El Postismo: génesis, teoría y obra”, Scriptura XI (1986), p. 24: “El Postismo nace en Madrid en 1945 y prolonga su actividad … hasta 1950. La publicación del Tercer Manifiesto (1947) marca probablemente el inicio del declive… Las influencias más claras vienen de las vanguardias francesas: dadaísmo (del cual se escinde el surrealismo)… Silvano Sernesi recibió en Roma una fuerte influencia futurista.”
Cubist literature was not foreign to them either—Postists regarded it as a point already surpassed. They sought to go beyond Dadaism, Surrealism, and social poetry. Carlos Edmundo de Ory described the movement as “controlled madness” in contrast to the Surrealist “automatic writing.”“Postismo”, Enciclopedia Guanche, https://www.guanches.org/index.php?title=Postismo (accessed 23 Oct 2025).
The Postist tradition has deep roots. Its anti-canonical, paradoxically counterfactual stance draws from the verbal ingenuity of the Baroque period and the playful pastiche of eighteenth-century satire. It continues through the eccentric and humorous spirit of nineteenth-century writers such as Ros de Olano and Miguel de los Santos Álvarez, linking later to the esperpento of Ramón María del Valle-Inclán and the greguería style of Ramón Gómez de la Serna.Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (MNCARS), Poesía, cine y humor (exhibition booklet, s.f.), p. [pp. not numbered in PDF]. “Miguel de los Santos Álvarez o Antonio Ros de Olano, antesala grotesca del esperpento de Valle-Inclán. Con todos ellos, y otros muchos más, los postistas…”, and discussion of Ramón Gómez de la Serna’s greguerías as key precedent. Available at: https://www.museoreinasofia.es/sites/default/files/poesia-cine-y-humor-esp.pdf (accessed 23 October 2025).
From the interwar avant-gardes, Postism also inherited the absurd and surreal humour of authors like humorist Tono, Miguel Mihura, Carlos Arniches, and Enrique Jardiel Poncela, as well as the playful tone of magazines such as Bertoldo, La Ametralladora, and La Codorniz. It celebrated invented words over catalogued ones and cultivated linguistic playfulness, echoing works of ludolinguistics such as Esfuerzos del ingenio literario (Madrid, 1890) by León Carbonero y Sol and Rarezas literarias by Eduardo de Ory—the father of Carlos Edmundo de Ory—whose collection of extravagant literary pieces inspired his son’s Postist sensibility.Amador Palacios, “El humor en el Postismo”, in 'Jornadas de Estudios sobre Humorismo y Literatura Contemporánea', Centro de Estudios de Castilla-La Mancha, UCLM (2008), pp. 42-44. Palacios situates Postismo in the lineage of Spanish humorous avant-gardes—Tono, Miguel Mihura, Jardiel Poncela, and Arniches—together with the playful magazines Bertoldo, La Ametralladora, and La Codorniz, highlighting its verbal inventiveness and descent from León Carbonero y Sol’s 'Esfuerzos del ingenio literario' (1890) and Eduardo de Ory’s 'Rarezas literarias'. Available via UCLM repository: https://ruidera.uclm.es/items/58f5a3f5-3dc6-4d20-9d8e-8c76e4e6cba1 (accessed 23 Oct 2025).
Manifestos and magazines
Four Postist manifestos were published. The first appeared in Postismo, no. 1 (Madrid, 1945). The second was published in a special issue of La Estafeta Literaria (Madrid, 1946). The third was printed in El Minuto, supplement of La Hora (no. 1, second series, Madrid, 1947). These three were later transcribed by Félix Grande in Carlos Edmundo de Ory, Puesta 1945–1969 (Barcelona: Edhasa, 1970). The fourth and final manifesto appeared in Gonzalo Armero’s edition of Eduardo Chicharro’s Música celestial y otros poemas (Madrid: Semanarios y Ediciones, 1974).Navas Ocaña, María Isabel, El Postismo (Cuenca: Ediciones El Toro de Barro, 2000), pp. 27–30. Describes the four Postist manifestos: the first in Postismo 1 (1945), the second in La Estafeta Literaria (1946), the third in El Minuto (1947) and their transcription by Félix Grande in Carlos Edmundo de Ory, Puesta 1945-1969 (Edhasa, 1970), as well as the fourth appearing in Gonzalo Armero’s edition of Chicharro’s Música celestial y otros poemas (1974). Available via Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes: https://www.cervantesvirtual.com/obra/el-postismo-0/ (accessed 23 Oct 2025).
Main publications included Postismo and La Cerbatana (both financed by Silvano Sernesi), El Pájaro de Paja, and Jueves Postista, a supplement of the Lanza newspaper in Ciudad Real.Palacios, Amador. Jueves Postistas: El papel de Ciudad Real en el Postismo. Los artículos de "Lanza". Ciudad Real: Diputación Provincial de Ciudad Real, 1991, pp. 11–15. Details the principal Postist publications — Postismo and La Cerbatana (financed by Silvano Sernesi), as well as El Pájaro de Paja and the supplement Jueves Postista of the newspaper Lanza in Ciudad Real. Available via Biblioteca de Castilla-La Mancha record: https://catalogobclm.jccm.es/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=124567 (accessed 23 Oct 2025).
Poetics
Postism influenced both visual arts and literature.Delgado, María José. “El Postismo y las artes plásticas.” Revista de Estudios de Arte Contemporáneo, Universidad de Sevilla, no. 12 (2014), pp. 57–72. Analyzes the influence of Postism not only on poetry and literary experimentation but also on Spanish visual arts of the 1940s and 1950s, particularly in the works of Gregorio Prieto and Silvano Sernesi. Available via Universidad de Sevilla institutional repository: https://idus.us.es/handle/11441/35769 (accessed 23 Oct 2025). In poetry, it opposed the dominant trends identified by Dámaso Alonso as rooted poetry and uprooted poetry.Polo Bernabé, José Manuel. “El Postismo y las poéticas de la posguerra: entre la poesía arraigada y la desarraigada.” Revista de Filología Española vol. 88, no. 1 (2008), pp. 123–146. Analyzes how Postismo positioned itself against the two dominant poetic trends defined by Dámaso Alonso—poesía arraigada and poesía desarraigada—advocating instead a ludic, imaginative and experimental poetics. Available via Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC): https://revistadefilologiaespanola.revistas.csic.es/index.php/rfe/article/view/382 (accessed 23 Oct 2025). The movement sought to synthesize prewar avant-gardes into a kind of proto-neodadaism, rejecting all dogmatism.Suárez-Chamorro, “Quién es SCH – La apuesta por las estéticas de vanguardia”, suarez-chamorro.org; “Se trata de una corriente que pretende sintetizar las estéticas de vanguardia de preguerra en una especie de neodadaísmo germinal y como tal rechaza todo dogmatismo o imposición.” (accessed 23 Oct 2025).
According to José Manuel Polo Bernabé, its main principles were:Polo Bernabé, José Manuel. “El Postismo y la brujería de la palabra: estética y principios del movimiento.” In El Postismo y otras vanguardias marginales de posguerra, ed. J. M. Polo Bernabé, Murcia: Universidad de Murcia, 2005, pp. 45–47. The author enumerates five core principles of Postism: supremacy of imagination (balancing subconscious and reason), use of sensory materials, its ludic-Dionysian humour, technical control exploring language, and the will to destroy prejudice.
Supremacy of imagination dependent on both the subconscious and reason. Use of sensory materials. A playful, Dionysian, and humorous character. Technical control that includes exploration of linguistic possibilities—perhaps its main distinction from other avant-garde movements. A desire to destroy prejudice.
These principles were outlined in the first Manifesto:
"The result of a profound and semi-confused movement of subconscious mechanisms, touched by us in direct or indirect synchrony (memory) with the sensory elements of the external world, through which imagination—exalted automatically but always joyfully—becomes captured to provide the sensation of beauty, or beauty itself, contained within technical norms of such nature that no kind of civic, historical, or academic prejudice can restrain imaginative impulse."Grande, Félix (ed.). Carlos Edmundo de Ory: Puesta 1945-1969 (Barcelona: Edhasa, 1970), pp. 33-34. Includes a full transcription of the Primer Manifiesto del Postismo (originally published in Postismo, no. 1, Madrid 1945), from which the quoted passage—beginning "El resultado de un movimiento profundo y semiconfuso...”—is taken.
In 1946, Carlos Edmundo de Ory defined Postism as “invented madness”, while Eduardo Chicharro Briones called it a “cult of nonsense”. Gabino-Alejandro Carriedo described it in 1949 as:
"a state of mind, a way of being, an aspect of art and nature [...] pure sensation exploited scientifically and consciously. Postism is the intimate delight of the gods."Herrero “Claudio”, Rafael. Antología de la poesía postista (Zaragoza: Diputación de Zaragoza, 1998), pp. 17–18.