ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to demonstrate through an extended essay on a single figure, Manuel, how the concept of individualism is actually rooted in the constraints and possibilities that are given by the experience of living in Madrid. The take Manuel has on individualism is one out of certain quite specific ways in which one can be individualistic in Madrid. The term castizo literally means pure and in Madrid refers to those that are thought to be ‘the real Madrilenian characters’. Manuel’s sense of individualism and what he really likes doing and feels he wants to express is of a specific kind: Manuel is an artist of Madrid, and for Madrid. Analysing Manuel’s attitudes and interests shows why it is necessary to focus on a cosmology that emerges as much from the study of Madrid as from the observation of this individual.
