ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on depictions of street scenes, urban types, and customs reproduced in Madrid’s illustrated and comical press during the second half of the nineteenth century. It studies the points of convergence between notions of tradition and the modern. To explore these issues, the study is divided into three interconnected sections. Firstly, it overviews representations of costumbrista types to better understand the shifts in style and content throughout the century. A second body of images looks at illustrations of contemporary practices–such as boarding, waiting for or riding the tram—, that were referred to as costumbres, escenas or tipos. These urban scenes were represented through the tropes of costumbrismo, a genre that originated in the eighteenth century and, by the late nineteenth century, was embedded in cultural memory, as both literature and print culture suggest. The third and last section explores how satire and humor addressed themes of modernization, like modern transport, and at the same time addressed novel repertoires of types. Among the concerns that surfaced in these illustrations was the invasion of privacy and the spatial relations prompted by the tram; the presence of European models of urbanization, fashion, and behavior; and depictions of popular castizo types associated with Madrilenian identity that were transposed to contemporary urban settings like the omnibus.
