The cosmopolitanism of modernism and Catalan noucentisme, the possibility of reaching a range of modernity within a tradition defined as black Spain, the debate around a renovating or avant-garde art, the march of many artists outside Spain, preferably to Paris, the invention of modern art that is the painting of Pablo Picasso and Joan Miró, the sculpture of Julio González, the difficult avant-garde of the republican years, pure art or compromised art? and the tragic breakdown of the Civil War constitute the main themes of a story that because of its complexity does not allow a linear and one-way story. The changes of direction, the dialogue between various trends, the encounter between those who say they are contrary, are as many of the issues addressed.