New Currents of Modernism
The photo below shows some of the artists and sponsors of Modern Art Week in 1922. Writer and critic Mário de Andrade, one of the founders of the modernist movement, is the third man from the left, and Oswald de Andrade, another member of the movement (but no relation), sits on the floor in front.
The “Grupo dos Cinco” [Group of Five] was the name for a collection of five modernists who were influential in the early founding of the movement and sought to promote a uniquely Brazilian culture that emphasized indigenous and non-European elements.
Though its members collaborated in forming the movement and organizing Modern Art Week, the group did not remain a unified source of modernist output throughout the 1920s. Groups split off due to divergent interests or disagreements over which tradition should inform the movement, while personal disputes?like a feud between Mario de Andrade and Oswald de Andrade after the latter called the former effeminate in writing?further hurt the unity of the Grupo dos Cinco.
The following images were either displayed at Modern Art Week in São Paulo in 1922, or were created in the years following this catalytic event for modern art in Brazil. Examine the images and notice the kinds of people, lifestyles, and emotions they evoke.
- What aspects of daily life and culture do these paintings use as their focal point?
- How do these images portray Brazil differently than in previous decades?
The painting “A Negra” (1923) was part of the first solo exhibition by Tarsila do Amaral. Her work was called “exotic,” “original,” “cerebral,” and “naïve” by various critics.
The painting “Bananal” [Banana Grove], by Lasar Segall (1927), draws the eye to a worker standing in the midst of a banana plantation, emphasizing the human element in Brazil’s agricultural production.
“Cinco Moças de Guaratingeutá” [Five Girls from Guaratinguetá] by Emiliano di Cavalcanti (1930).
African Culture and Brazilian Modernism
As is particularly clear in the above paintings, the Brazilian Modernists consciously included images of Afro-Brazilians in their work. This suggests that they considered a reconciliation of the various racial identities within Brazil to be a necessary step in modernizing. However, the purpose of these images varied from work to work. Tarsila do Amaral’s “A Negra” shows a black woman with prominent, exaggerated breasts and lips, seated against an abstract background of earth tones. This is a maternal figure; perhaps it suggests that the African elements of Brazilian culture birthed the modern nation. Whatever it means, the painting plays off old stereotypes of African culture, giving it an earthy and exotic character but presenting this as an essential, positive part of the national identity.
Emiliano di Cavalcanti’s “Cinco Moças de Guaratingeutá,” on the other hand, paints the image of a mixed-raced Brazil as commonplace as Amaral makes it exotic. His painting shows five well-dressed young women with a spectrum of different skin tones. His painting shows multiracialism as a part of everyday life. However, this image of a perfectly mixed-race society was highly idealized at the time, suggesting a form of racial democracy inconsistent with the real political and economic limitations and the persistent racism faced by non-white Brazilians.
Anthropophagy and Nationalism in the Artistic World
Brazilian modernism was marked by an experimentalism that was a rejection of the strict academism of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, as well as by a heightened consciousness of the social problems and political currents within Brazil. A major polemic within the movement came from anxiety over the influence of Europe and the United States on Brazilian art and culture. Two schools of thought on the subject emerged.
Oswald de Andrade and the Anthropophagics (cannibals) believed that they should subsume influences from abroad but turn them into a uniquely Brazilian art form. Andrade’s Manifesto Anthropófogo [Cannibal Manifesto] was the mission statement of this school:
Only Cannibalism unites us. Socially. Economically. Philosophically.
The unique law of the world. The disguised expression of all individualisms, all collectivisms. Of all religions. Of all peace treaties.
Tupi or not tupi that is the question.
Against all catechisms. And against the mother of the Gracos.
I am only interested in what’s not mine. The law of men. The law of the cannibal.
We are tired of all those suspicious Catholic husbands in plays. Freud finished off the enigma of woman and the other recent psychological seers.
What dominated over truth was clothing, an impermeable layer between the interior world and the exterior world. Reaction against people in clothes. The American cinema will tell us about this.
Sons of the sun, mother of living creatures. Fiercely met and loved, with all the hypocrisy of longing: importation, exchange, and tourists. In the country of the big snake.
It’s because we never had grammatical structures or collections of old vegetables. And we never knew urban from suburban, frontier country from continental. Lazy on the world map of Brazil.
One participating consciousness, one religious rhythm.
The full text of the Manifesto Anthropófago can be found here.
The phrase “Tupi or not tupi that is the question” one of the most famous in the manifesto, is a pun with a doubly important significance. First, it is a reference to the Tupí Indians who inhabited the coast of Brazil at the time of conquest; the original settlers of the country, who were also cannibals who ate their enemies to gain strength. Second, it is itself an act of cultural cannibalism; Andrade takes the famous Shakespeare passage, “To be or not to be,” digests it, and applies it to a particular Brazilian situation.
In opposition to the Anthropophagics were the Nationalists, who rejected international influences. Many of the Nationalist modernists were actively engaged in politics. The leader of the school, the writer Plínio Salgado, went on to become a fascist political figure and lead a failed coup against President Getúlio Vargas.
The photograph at left shows a poster for the silent film São Paulo, A Symphonia da Metropole (1929), which contained shots of the newly booming city, including cars and skyscrapers.
The rise of modernism made São Paulo a new center for the arts. In previous decades it had been growing economically, due to the coffee boom and the influx of immigrants to the city, but Modern Art Week made São Paulo a more culturally prominent city. In particular, the festival established the city as the seat of a modern movement, as opposed to the more traditional, conservative Rio de Janeiro, site of the Academy of Arts and Letters.
Further Reading
- The curatorial notes for the exhibit “Brazil: Body and Soul” at the Guggenheim Museum in New York provide important context for the artistic and political influences on the movement.
Sources
- Historia do modernismo (informational booklet). São Paulo: Caixa Modernista, EDUSP/Editoria UFMG/Imprensa Oficial, 2003.