talk about the artists of modern art it means talking about the greatest event that marked the history of Brazilian art. Such an event, known as the Modern Art Week, took place at the Municipal Theater of São Paulo, between February 13 and 18, 1922.
Starting from this date (1922), we began to understand the real purposes established through the historical event. After all, why 1922? This is the date on which Brazil commemorated its first centenary of independence, although that independence has not transformed the political, economic or cultural planes. Thus, since the period before the Week of 1922, known as Pre-Modernism, there has been a reaction for part of the artistic class in revealing a Brazil seen under the real plane, far from the idealism preached by the era romantic. A Brazil of the marginalized, ranging from the northeastern hinterland to the Rio suburbs. It is not by chance that Euclides da Cunha, Monteiro Lobato, among others, were able to express their dissatisfaction through the ills that corrupted society at that time – on the one hand industrial progress arising from the expansion of capitalism, on the other hand the mass of the excluded, formed by the working class that, increasingly organized, carried out intense strikes.
In this atmosphere of euphoria, imbued with the purpose of making changes, especially influenced by avant-garde movements, artists expressed their ideological positions through their creations, whether in painting, music, sculpture, literature, among other forms of art. In this sense, let's look at the biographical data inherent in some of them, starting with:
Di Cavalcanti
Emiliano Augusto Cavalcanti de Albuquerque e Melo, son of Frederico Augusto Cavalcanti de Albuquerque and Rosalia de Sena,
he was born in 1897, in Rio de Janeiro, and died in 1976 in that same city. His artistic talent began in 1908, in São Cristóvão, a middle-class neighborhood to which the family had moved.
Years later, in 1914, he began his caricaturist career. In 1916, he enrolled at the Livre de Direito school, moving to São Paulo and taking with him a letter from Olavo Bilac to the journalist Nestor Rangel Pestana, an art critic from Estadão. With that, he was employed as an archivist for the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo.
Di Cavalcanti was one of the creators of the Modern Art Week, participating in the creation of catalogs and programs, in addition to exhibiting twelve paintings. Among his vast work, we can mention:
Journey of My Life – The Testament of Alvorada (1955) and Lyrical Reminiscences of a Perfect Carioca (1964).
He illustrated numerous books, including: Carnaval, by Manuel Bandeira, 1919; Losango Cáqui, by Mario de Andrade, 1926; A Noite na Taverna e Macário, by Alvares de Azevedo, 1941; etc.
He executed murals in Brasília, Belo Horizonte, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo and edited print albums such as Lapa, woodcuts, 1956; Cinco Serigrafias, 1969 and Sete Flores, with text by Carlos Drummond de Andrade, 1969.
Ishmael Nery
Ismael Nery was born in Belém do Pará in 1900 and died in 1934 in the city of Rio de Janeiro. This artist did not defend the idea of nationality like the artists of his time; rather, he extended his artistic expression in its broadest sense, interweaving all currents of thought. His career as a painter did not earn him the deserved recognition by the public, since he did not sell more than a hundred paintings, exhibited only at two events. Unlike his production as a draftsman, which, according to experts, was better than his painting.
The work of this noble artist is usually divided into three strands: the expressionist, from 1922 to 1923; the cubist, from 1924 to 1927, under the strong influence of Pablo Picasso; and the Surrealist, demarcated from 1927 to 1934, its most important and promising phase.
Lasar Segal
Lasar Segal was born on July 21, 1891, in the city of Vilna, capital of Lithuania. He died on August 2, 1957 in the city of São Paulo, leaving behind a vast collection that emphasizes not only the beauty, but above all the misery that he had witnessed throughout his journey. For Segal, static painting did not satisfy him, given that it was necessary to make some distortions in it in order to portray reality – a purpose that led him to approach Expressionism. After a quick stay in Holland, he left for Brazil, where he organized two exhibitions: one in São Paulo and another in Campinas.
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More than a painter, also considered a true sociologist, Lasar Segal was obsessed with the human being and, through his brushes, he portrayed the Brazilian problems, revealed by familiar scenes, emphasizing the poor interior of the houses, as well as the suffering faces of their population. These scenes portrayed the conformism of a society considered immutable.
Therefore, he used in his works not only oil on canvas, but also engraving processes that he had learned in Russia, such as lithography and zincography, which gave his art a purely versatile character.
Struck by a massive attack, he died. However, his vast work has remained alive, through a collection of 2,500 works, a place where a Library organized by his wife – writer and translator – functions.
Milton Dacosta
Milton Dacosta was born in 1915, in Niterói, in the state of Rio de Janeiro, and died in 1988, in the city of Rio de Janeiro. At 14 he met Augusto Hantz, a German teacher with whom he had his first drawing lessons, enrolling in the following year at the Escola de Belas Artes, attending the free course taught by Augusto José Marquis Junior.
In 1936, after holding a solo show, Dacosta felt motivated to enroll in the National Salon of Fine Arts. By exhibiting her work, she received an honorable mention, winning a bronze and silver medal. In 1944 he received the coveted award for a trip abroad, traveling in 1945 to the United States with the painter Djanira, and from there he went to Paris, where he stayed for two years.
This artist's painting, which evolved little by little, reached great heights. She first identified with Impressionism, sequentially going to Expressionism, Cubism, Concretism, and then back to Cubism again, by choice. She married in 1949 the painter Maria Leontina, whose union lasted for 37 years. Together they participated in Bienals, traveled abroad for improvement courses, and together they grew in the mission of making the world even more beautiful through their work.
Anita Malfatti
Anita Catarina Malfatti was born on December 2, 1889, in São Paulo. Daughter of Samuel Malfatti and Elisabete, she was a painter, draftsman and spoke several languages, which gave her a vast cultural ability.
Arriving in Berlin in September 1910, she began taking private lessons at Fritz Burger's studio, enrolling a year later at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. In 1916 she returned to Brazil, at the age of 27, ready to express all her art, especially focused on Expressionism.
Thus, through influences from her modernist friends, in particular by Di Cavalcanti, Anita decided to locate one of the Mappin Stores dependencies and perform a single presentation of their work, on December 12, 1917.
What he didn't know was that fate, ironically, had in store for him great misfortune. Monteiro Lobato, through his article Paranoia or mystification, harshly criticized the artist's work. Such an intent was not aimed at her in particular, but at the modernists themselves. The fact shook her deeply and made her carry for the rest of her life a feeling of total discontent with the things around her. Her first instinct was to abandon art altogether, however she started taking classes with the master Pedro Alexandrino, a fact that granted them a fruitful and lasting friendship.
Motivated by friends, she decided to participate in the Week of Modern Art in 1922 and, the following year, traveled to Paris, armed with a scholarship, where she met Tarsila do Amaral, Oswald de Andrade, Vitor Brecheret and Di Cavalcanti. After some time he returned to Brazilian soil, with his confidence already recovered, however he was no longer willing to venture into new “cultural ventures”.
Anita died on November 6, 1964 in Diadema, state of São Paulo, where she lived with her sister Georgina, on a farm.
By Vânia Duarte
Graduated in Letters
