Tarsila do Amaral's role in Brazilian modernism and national identity formation

Tarsila Do Amaral

One of the most important Brazilian artists of the 20th century, Tarsila do Amaral, was born in Sao Paulo in 1886. She had a privileged childhood as the grandchild of a rich farmer. This brought with it various advantages, including an education that taught her to read, write, embroider and speak French (Damian, 1999). Finishing her studies in France and returning to Brazil, this artist left an impression on the Modernist movement in the country that remains to this day. With her husband Oswald de Andrade, Tarsila worked towards creating a unique artistic perspective for the Brazilian people. This perspective would not reject the European forms and images that had ruled the country's art world until the 1920s. Instead, these would be used and incorporated into traditional forms to create an entirely new and more inclusive perspective.

The Modernist movement came in the midst of a Brazil that was itself subject to numerous dualities, including the various cultures within its borders, the division of labor, the distribution of wealth, the duality between nature and industry, and so on. Andrade concerned herself specifically with the inherent dangers of not recognizing the importance of tradition and nature in favor of industrial greed.

After a lifetime dedicated to her artistic vision, Tarsila do Amaral died in 1973 in Sao Paulo.

Culture, Politics, and Arts in Brazil

Until the early 20th century, the arts scene in Brazil was dominated by European forms and images (Amaral, 1995). Despite the fact that Brazil included not only Europeans, but also black Africans and indigenous Indian tribes as part of its cultural mix, the art forms created by cultures other than the European were often considered to be inferior and not worthy of serious consideration.

This all changed, however, when a group of artists, writers, and intellectuals gathered at the Teatro Municipal for an exhibition of works in painting, poetry, music, and lectures. This was the Modern Art Week (Semana de Arte Moderna) in 1922. While this is the historical point for the start of Brazilian Modernism, there have been artists involved in the movement prior to this week. The importance of the week, however, lies in the fact that it represented a gathering of artists working within the same movement with the aim of creating a new and unique Brazilian artistic culture.

It is interesting to note that the year 1922 marked the first centennial of the country's independence. One might therefore consider it significant that this year sparked the start of an artistic revolution that would create its artistic independence along with its political achievements one hundred years earlier (Philippou, 2005).

This does not, however, mean that the movement occurred in a political vacuum. The context of the Modernist movement in Brazil included various issues, including the challenges presented by the lingering threads of slavery, abolished only in 1888, and the issue of industrialization that included developments like a free labor market and an urban transportation network. During the 1920s, Sao Paulo produced more manufactured goods than its primary rival Rio de Janeiro.

With these developments, questions arose around the national identity of the country in terms of its social, political, and economic drives. Change brought with it new questions about the meaning of the country's national identity and a search for the values that would unify its citizens. According to Kahl (1986), a national identity is an essential part of unity. The author places emphasis on a "common value-system" as an adhesive that unifies a society. The various upheavals, rapid development, and dualities in the country during the start of the 20th century appear to have eroded this adhesive somewhat. Hence, rather than perceiving the world in similar ways, there were many different viewpoints, depending on a variety of factors, including social status, employment, artistic outlook, and so on. The Modernist movement, in many ways, sought to stabilize and unify at least the artistic community of the time.

In these terms, Korfmann and Nogueira (2004, p. 126) emphasize the importance of recognizing the uniqueness of the Modernist movement in Brazil. They note that, despite any similarity in terms such as "avant-garde," this does not mean that the movement is automatically the same in terms of aesthetics and principles across the borders of different countries. Indeed, Brazil is so unique in nature that one must recognize the sizeable differences in its artistic aesthetic and those in countries such as the United States. This is the very principle that de Andrade and do Amaral intended to promote with their work.

Hence, the Modern Art Week aimed to find a resolution for the longstanding artistic conflict between the young artists who considered themselves to be modernists at the time and the Brazilian Academy of Letters, the recognized entity dictating legitimate artistic expression in the country. Despite the controversy that surrounding the events presented during the Week, it marked one of the most important turning points in Brazilian artistic history, and for the art of Tarsila do Amaral.

Thanks to the Modern Art Week, Sao Paulo now distinguished itself from the culturally conservative Rio de Janeiro in another important way; it was now the location of the new modernist movement and as such a culturally and artistically highly important city, if not the most important city, in the country.

Tarsila do Amaral: Artist and Art

Tarsila do Amaral was somewhat unusual for her epoch, as she was born into the rural aristocracy, as mentioned above. Girls born into this world were generally not expected to be interested in furthering their basic education in favor of marriage. She was well to do throughout her life, with parents who provided her with all she needed, if not in terms of education, then at least in material well-being (Damian, 1999). It is within this tradition that she entered into an arranged marriage with her mother's cousin in 1906. Although the marriage produced a daughter, do Amaral soon found herself craving for independence and a fulfillment of her artistic needs (Damian, 1999).

She asserted her independence by studying sculpture, painting, and design with the help of Brazilian teachers who were very respected but also very traditional. In other words, they advocated the dominance of European art forms and images in favor of what was considered inferior art forms. These were the more traditional images of native people and practices in the country (Damian, 1999).

A pivotal time in do Amaral's life was when she went to Paris to study at the Academie Julian during 1920. Although she still focused on conservative work while studying with Emile Renard, her life and associations in Paris would soon bring Tarsila to a new artistic consciousness, which she would use to begin creating images and works of her own design and inspiration (Damian, 1999). In 1921, for example, she returned to Brazil and immersed herself in the history and legends of the country to unearth the artistic heritage of the country. In addition, she became concerned not only with the subversion of ancient culture by a general greedy drive towards industrial profits, but also with issues like deforestation and the destruction of the Amazon forests by the same drive. As such, she began to incorporate these concerns into her art work.

The entire decade of the 1920s for do Amaral was filled with a quest towards building a singular and unique identity that incorporates her own concerns with new artistic directions she was exposed to. Studying with artists like Andrew Lhote, Fernand Leger, and Albert Gleizes, the young artist was exposed to directions like Cubism, Futurism, and Expressionism. She gained firsthand experience with new forms of art, while also gaining an understanding of European artistic trends at the time (Damian, 1999). Parisians, for example, were fascinated with what was termed the "new world." In other words, ethnic art forms emerging from third-world countries like Africa formed the center of such attention. It is this fascination that brought home to Tarsila do Amaral the possibility of presenting her own native culture and heritage with pride and respect.

In 1922, her artistic journey brought her into contact with a group of artists and intellectuals in Sao Paulo, whose main search focused on the quest for a Brazilian identity while questioning the dominance of European art and culture in the country. Since this was precisely the focus of Tarsila's quest, she found a sympathetic bond with the group (Damian, 1999).

This quest ultimately manifested themselves in the Semanda de Arte Moderna (the Modern Art Week Exhibition), a week during which various Brazilian artists took the opportunity to display works that attempted to voice a social and cultural break-away from the norm of European art in Brazil, as mentioned.

This is considered to be the most significant event in the Brazilian arts during the 20th century (Nist, 2014). The aesthetic manifesto during this exhibition represented several things in terms of artistic recognition and development in the Brazilian culture, including a public and violent break with past artistic traditions and values. In unprecedented fashion, the Modernist movement staged by the exhibition represents a renovation of all art forms, including poetry, the visual arts, music, architecture, and the like. It was a movement that excited research and experimentation with existing and new forms. It formed a revolt against traditions that have been treasured for centuries in the country. One result was that Brazilian literature become incorporated and recognized in the literature of the Western world.

The poets who took part in the movement sought not only new forms of artistic expression, but also new forms of social consciousness, including a new age of humanity, a common ground to be established between culture and spontaneity, tradition and the original, and the social and natural realities of life. They also sought artistic ideals such as an aesthetic purity that was different and new, as opposed to the traditional, as well as a new unity between humanity and nature, artist and human (Nist, 2014).

Part of this drive was the Grupo dos Cinco, consisting of Anita Malfatti, Mario de Andrade, Menotti del Picchia, and Oswald de Andrade. This group focused on activism to effect renewal in the Brazilian culture via the use of techniques and forms of expression that would create a distance from the then prominence of European styles and subject matter. Instead, they focused on incorporating Brazilian subject matter in their work. Tarsila met Oswald de Andrade during 1922, and he would later become her husband. It is also with him that she would bring a large amount of her art and artistic philosophy to fruition.

Influential Relationships

One of the relationships that probably influenced Tarsila do Amaral most was the one with her husband to be, Oswald de Andrade. Andrade was the pioneer of the "cannibalist" (antropofagia) movement and also the author of the "Cannibal Manifesto" (Jackson, 1994). The theme of cannibalism was used to indicate the way in which various elements of different movements and cultures could be used to create an entirely new identity. In this case, the new identity would belong to Brazil. As such, cannibalism was seen in a symbolic sense, where different traditions were "cannibalized." This idea was also part of the recognition of traditional culture within the borders of Brazil, as opposed to the external influences that brought European art and imagery to the country as its mainstream aesthetic.

After marrying Andrade, Tarsial do Amaral worked with him on his efforts to bring cannibalism to the artistic consciousness of those involved in the modernist movement in the country. Their Revista de Antropofagia (Cannibal Magazine), published during 1928 and 1929, was part of their collaboration in this regard.

According to Jackson (1994), cannibalism was an innovative theory to cater to the modernist fascination with the primitive. Emerging from the Parisian movements, cannibalism taught its adherents to value ethnic diversity and racial heterogeneity, along with the incorporation of human and nature to form a singular entity within the new world of art and culture.

As such, Tarsila do Amaral's contribution to this movement was extremely important, also solidifying her importance as an artist of note in the Brazilian world. Incorporating her paintings with his philosophy and poetry on Cannibalism, do Amaral and Andrade formed a team that created a greater whole than the sum of their parts.

As husband and wife, do Amaral and de Andrade personified the ideal of Cannibalism, which was to incorporate various cultural, artistic, and traditional values into a singular whole that created a new and unique identity, which was the main aim of the Modernist movement in the country at the time. This is then also de Andrade's focus in his Manifesto. He challenges dualities such as the dichotomies between civilization and barbarism, the modern and the primitive, the original and the derivative, and so on. As such, he advocates for the incorporation of various elements that would ultimately become not so much a copy of others, as art has been up to that point in the country, but rather a work that incorporates both existing and new elements that have been "cannibalized" and integrated to become something entirely new. Hence, European culture is not copied, but it is not rejected either. It is "devoured" to become part of the native self that is the Brazilian artist.

Works of Art: The Traditional and the New

This cannibalization of various traditions and dualities is also visible in all do Amaral's paintings. The drawing "Sao Paulo," for example, is one of the artist's iconic pieces, not least for how it demonstrates not only the dichotomy between traditional Brazilian values and the rise of industry and machinery in the country, but also for its use of traditional subject matter along with European art forms (Damian, 1999). As such, these parallel the imagery of the piece, where the traditional and the new, or the modern, appear to clash.

In terms of imagery, the juxtaposition lies in the portrayal of nature as opposed to industry. Images of the trees, grass, and water are all in a type of fertile and blooming colors. These images appear in rounded, soft shapes, with natural colors like green, brown, and blue. These colors also particularly bright, implying the direct bright light often experienced in the environment. This implicates the duality of Brazil at the time. There is a particular interaction between the traditional and the modern. While most of the workforce was still involved in manual labor and farming, there was a very strong movement towards industrialization.

As such, the buildings and bridges are symbols of industry in the painting, and these are contrasted strongly with the images of nature. They are portrayed either in stark blacks or bleak whites, with the occasional red or yellow. Where images of industry use natural colors like green or brown, these are far less prominently expressed than the rich colors of the nature images Damian, 1999). The implication here appears to be that nature at least as important as industry, and should be regarded as such by the general populace. The size and strength of the buildings and bridges seem to indicate that these have some use and prominence, but that this should never overpower the importance of nature and traditional images in the country.

What do Amaral does with this painting is provide a strong and clear image of the nature of life in Brazil. She portrays the uniqueness of this by incorporating various elements of Cubism, which she uses to contrast the images. Although Cubism is an artistic tradition she learned to use in France, do Amaral uses this to create a uniquely Brazilian work to portray Brazilian life. She is concerned with the destruction of nature by industry. Nature, with its beautiful colors and natural shapes is becoming subordinate by industry with its stark lines and dull colors (Damian, 1999).

As such, do Amaral uses the painting to incorporate the old and the new in a unique way. She uses the European tradition of Cubism to show that traditional natural images and art in Brazil do not need to be submerged beneath the tide of European traditions. Instead, her paintings advocate for the recognition of Brazilian indigenous images and subject matter as valid images for artistic expression.

Hence, like she has incorporated images of both nature and industry in her works, do Amaral does not advocate for one over the other, but rather for the merits of recognizing that both can exist alongside each other, informing each other and strengthening each other for the improvement of all.

In technical terms, the drawing shows the influences Tarsila do Amaral brought with her from her travels outside her own country. She has come to a realization that outside and new influences can co-exist with what already is part and parcel of her native country (Damian, 1999). As such, she used images to show not only her love for her country, but also the ideals provided by modernism and Cubism. Do Amaral therefore use elements like a rejection of art that copies nature. Instead, she incorporates in this work a sense of two-dimensionality, geometric forms, and contrasting vantage points to bring her points across.

Tarsila do Amaral uses Cubism in a similar way in her "Black Woman," although this is far more focused on creating a sense of pride in the Brazilian tradition via new forms of artistic expression. While the imagery is not blatantly dualistic, the implication of artistic form as opposed to the images portrayed is.

The Black Woman is a fertile image of the traditional black "nanny" in the country (Damian, 1999). She is regarded as a source to nourish the Brazilian people. The imagery is dominated by the Black Woman of the title, featuring exaggerated characteristics such as large breasts and distorted lips and eyes that might be classified as Negroid.