A Bohemian club of Santa Cruz Tenerife was helped along by coffee culture.
The Bohemian club Café El Aguila for literature, poetry and other arts is historically famous in the Tenerife capital, indeed. However, it took a few centuries and much history for such a club to be possible.
First literature parties had their Tertulias or favorite repeat celebracions at the house of the elite in Tenerife's first capital San Christóbal de la Laguna. There, the palace called Palacio Nava of the Tenerife nobility kept the towns top minds set to peaceful rivalry and poetic ambition. No Bohemian club would have been permitted there by its members of landowners, government and church.
One of its most prominent members was the cleric and famous Los Realejos historian and Poet José de Viera y Clavijo who was born in 1731. He was a key figure for La Laguna's early literature and poetry celebrations whose Tertulia meetings are still renown now. This son of Tenerife was a talented diplomat who also worshipped everything new. He attracted many foreigners to la Laguna after he had spent time studying sciences in Paris France. Top Parisian Bohemian club:By the way, the main Quartier Latin Bohemian Mind that literature was a powerful means which connected Tenerife and the Canary Islands with the rest of Europe, as early as XVII and XVIII.
In France, many Bohemians had their own clubs for all kinds of art much earlier. After the beheading of Marie Antoinette in 1793 and the end of Absolutism normal citizens started to congregate freely in their own circles. However, many a Bohemian club was rather a place for revolutionary ideas. Not only Moliere was welcome there but, also men like Robespierre.
Writing followed fierce discussions in those days, while television talk shows would have been perceived as science fiction. News puplications spread new ideas about politics, art, social movements and philosophy. Tenerife Spain in 1845Printing presses and paper production were fast and good enough by 1845 to print famous French literature to carry overseas. Much of it landed by French ships in Santa Cruz Tenerife Spain.
When Santa Cruz started taking over the rights of capital from La Laguna in 1723 the Tertulia of the literature circle in La Laguna stopped being practical. Slowly, the first Bohemian club came into being much of which is also due to a new trend. This new vogue was all about Coffee culture in public cafés. There, it grew like wildfire. Doors were opened to stimulating coffee for innovative Bohemians and liberal spirits.
Café Peña seems to have been the first Bohemian club which welcomed normal inhabitants of the Canary Islands and Tenerife. Also Café El Guanche is lovingly remembered by some lovers of literature, poetry and art. Unfortunately, both places only seem to live on in old photos.
The last Tertulia was carried over into century XX at the Café El Aguila from 1920 to 1980.
The Aguila Cafe and restaurant welcomed virtually everybody of artistic merit and employed different memembership prerogatives than the nearby friendship club Circulo de Amistád.
El Aguila meant fun downtown in Santa Cruz Tenerife but it also caused drama to its idealistic Spanish artists. A bohemian club like Café El Aguila would never have tolerated General Franco's radical ideas and brutal actions which now belong to a sad chapter of Tenerife history Santa Cruz. Now, in 2011 Restaurante El Aguila Restaurant with its outstanding designer as well as Spanish food goes with the times. It still has its doors wide open for Bohemians, with or without literary ambitions. However, it is rather chic for a club for non conformist artists of Tenerife with unconventional life style, while its casual veranda appeals to back packers as well as to the banker or shop owner from next door. This club also appeals to a Bohemian called Super Martin, a poetry fan and friend of the author of this article. The chicharrero Super Martin of the Tenerife Cabildo collects literature at the Santa Cruz flee market on Sunday mornings. Address Café and Restaurante El Aguila Kindly note:  Custom Search New! CommentsHave your say about what you just read! Leave me a new comment in the box below. |
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Gabriele Muellenberg 
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