Concretism: context, characteristics, authors

Concretism is an artistic movement, and also a literary current, characterized by objectivity and experimental work with space. It emerged in the 20th century, as a reflection of a reality marked by rationality and technological advancement.

In that century, there were two world wars and the threat of nuclear war. In Brazil, the developmental policy of Juscelino Kubitschek (1902-1976) was a great driver of Concretism.

Brazilian concrete poetry emerged with the publication of the magazine Noigandres, in 1952, under the responsibility of poets such as Haroldo de Campos, Décio Pignatari and Augusto de Campos. However, the official launch of Brazilian Concretism occurred in 1956, in National Exhibition of Concrete Art, in São Paulo. In addition to the aforementioned poets, the Bolivian Eugen Gomringer (in Switzerland) and the Brazilian Öyvind Fahlström (in Sweden) are co-founders of Concretism.

Read too: Baroque – a literary movement that was also based on the plastic arts

Historical context of Concretism

After First World War (1914-1918), there was the strengthening of ultranationalist movements such as Italian fascism and German Nazism, which led to the Second World War (1939-1945), which culminated in the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So, while Europe began its reconstruction, the world was divided between two great economic powers: United States and the extinct Soviet Union.

Then came the Cold War (1947-1991) — political, economic and ideological dispute between capitalist and socialist countries. If, in the United States, there was a persecution and imprisonment of alleged American communists in the 1950s, the so-called McCarthyism (1950-1957) — in the Soviet Union, even in the Post-Stalin Era (1953-1991), there was censorship and persecution of citizens who opposed the regime.

At the American continent, a new socialist country emerged. Supported by the Soviet Union, and with the same policy of censorship and persecution of opponents in the country, Fidel Castro (1926-2016) became a major threat to the United States, as it could allow the Soviet Union to use its territory, Cuba, to attack the North American country. There was then a strong threat of nuclear war.

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In this conflict, the Brazil sided with the United States and, like that nation, it also undertook its persecution and imprisonment of communists. However, after the suicide of Getulio Vargas (1882-1954), the new president, Juscelino Kubitschek, kept his focus on building Brasilia and undertook a developmental policy that led to problematic and accelerated urban growth.

In addition, both in the United States and in Brazil, cinema and television (which arrived in Brazil in 1950) were used in favor of training and from the stimulus to the capitalist consumption. It was the beginning of a period that some historians understand as Post-Modernity, marked by the overconsumption and by existential emptiness.

Read too: Industry Cultural – propaganda of capitalism that preaches the ideology of consumerism

Characteristics of Concretism

Manifesto of Concrete Art, published in the magazine Art Concrete, Paris, in 1930.

THE concrete art preceded the concrete movement in literature. It appeared, therefore, at the beginning of the 20th century, more precisely in 1930, when the Dutch Theo van Doesburg (1883-1931) published the Manifesto of Concrete Art. Thus, she presents the following features:

• autonomous language
• Geometrism
• universal theme
• Planning
• Simplicity
• Objectivity
• anti-impressionism
• anti-nationalism
• anti-regionalism
• anti-sentimentalism
• opposition to abstract art
• Non-representation of nature
• Appreciation of technique, formal elements
• Metalanguage: the work represents itself
• Defense of the specificity of each artistic segment

concrete authors

THE concrete poetry was born, concomitantly, in the Brazil, at Switzerland and on Sweden. However, its basic characteristics were founded here, in Brazil. In Switzerland, the Bolivian Eugen Gomringer, considered one of the creators of concrete poetry in the German language, was responsible for the dissemination of Concretism in that country in the 1950s. Below, we reproduce one of his poems:

baum
baum kind

kind
kind hun

hund
hund haus

haus
haus baum

baum kind hund haus|1|

In Brazil, the fathers of concrete poetry are Haroldo de Campos, Décio Pignatari and Augusto de Campos, authors of Pilot Plan for Concrete Poetry (1958), a manifesto in which the authors point out the precursors of concrete poetry and characterize his works:

• The french Stephane Mallarmé (1842-1898): “space and typographic features as elements nouns of the composition”.
• the american Ezra Pound (1885-1972): “ideogrammatic method”.
• the irish James Joyce (1882-1941): “word-ideogram, organic interpenetration of time and space, atomization of words, physiognomic typography, valorization expressionist from space”.
• The french Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918): “as a vision, more than as a praxis. futurism, Dadaism: contributions to the life of the problem”.
• Oswald de Andrade (1890-1954): “in pills, minutes of poetry”.
• João Cabral de Melo Neto(1920-1999): “direct speech, economy and functional architecture of the verse”.

In addition to the Campos and Décio Pignatari brothers, the Brazilian Öyvind Fahlström (1928-1976), author of Manifesto for Concrete Poetry, from 1953, is considered one of the founders of concrete poetry, as well as being its promoter in Sweden.

Other authors of concrete poetry:

• AND. M. de Melo e Castro: Portuguese
• Salette Tavares (1922-1994): Portuguese
• Arnold Antunes: Brazilian
• Paulo Leminski(1944-1989): Brazilian

Poem by Salette Tavares, from the book graphic poetry, 1995.

See too: Five poems by Paulo Leminski

Works of Concretism

Book cover galaxies, by Haroldo de Campos, published by Editora 34. [1]

• of the forerunners

• Stephane Mallarmé:a throw of the dice (1897)
• Ezra Pound: the corners (1925)
• James Joyce: Ulysses (1922) and Finnegans Wake (1939)
• Guillaume Apollinaire:calligrams (1918)
• Oswald de Andrade:Brazil wood (1925)
• João Cabral de Melo Neto:The engineer (1945), composition psychology (1947) and antiode (1947)

• of the founders

• Eugen Gomringer:constellations (1953)
• Öyvind Fahlström:border (1966)
• Haroldo de Campos:galaxies (1984)
• Décio Pignatari:Body (1960)
• Augusto de Campos:clip-poems (1997)

• from other authors

• AND. M. de Melo e Castro: Ideograms (1962)
• Salette Tavares:graphic poetry (1995)
• Arnaldo Antunes:all (1991)
• Paulo Leminski:whims & relaxations (1983)

Concretism in Brazil

Poema “Luxo” (1965), by Augusto de Campos, from the book cheers (1979).

Noigandres is the name of a group created in 1952, in São Paulo, formed by poets such as Haroldo de Campos, Décio Pignatari and Augusto de Campos. It is also the title of the magazine created by this group, whose members are responsible for the emergence of Brazilian concrete poetry. For them, poetry should reflect modern society, in order to unite formal experimentalism with the critique of reality.

However, the official release of Brazilian concrete occurred in National Exhibition of Concrete Art, in 1956, at the Museum of Modern Art in São Paulo. In this event, national avant-garde artists — from the visual arts and of the concrete poetry — presented their works. In this exhibition, posters-poems, paintings, drawings and sculptures by the following artists were shown:

• Décio Vieira (1922-1988)
• Rubem Ludolf (1932-2010)
• César Oiticica
• Hélio Oiticica (1937-1980)
• Lygia Pape (1927-2004)
• Lygia Clark (1920-1988)
• Amilcar de Castro (1920-2002)
• Franz Weissmann (1911-2005)
• Alexandre Wollner (1928-2018)
• Alfredo Volpi (1896-1988)
• Aluísio Carvão (1920-2001)
• Décio Vieira (1922-1988)
• Kazmer Féjer (1923-1989)
• Ferreira Gullar (1930-2016)
• Geraldo de Barros (1923-1998)
• Hermelindo Fiaminghi (1920-2004)
• Ivan Serpa (1923-1973)
• Judith Lauand
• Lothar Charoux (1912-1987)
• Luiz Sacilotto (1924-2003)
• Maurício Nogueira Lima (1930-1999)
• Waldemar Cordeiro (1925-1973)
• Décio Pignatari (1927-2012)
• Haroldo de Campos (1929-2003)
• Augusto de Campos
• Ronaldo Azeredo (1937-2006)

Also access: Modernism in Brazil – a break with classic art standards

concrete poetry

Poem by Décio Pignatari, from the book Poetry because it's poetry (1986).

Concrete poetry has the following characteristics:

• formal or structural experimentation
• Radical break with lyrical poetry
• opposition to intimate poetry
• Valuing the materiality of words
• Verbivocovisual character: word, sound and image
• absence of verses
• Visual and multi-significant sign
• Use of ellipses
• Defense of the object-poem
• Resignification of white space on the page
• Exploration of page space
• Concern with word order
• Nonlinear arrangement of words
• Aesthetic autonomy: independent of subjectivities
• Exploration of metalanguage

Neoconcretism

In 1959, with the publication of the Neoconcrete Manifesto, some artists performed a break with Concretism. Among them was the poet Ferreira Gullar, which thus characterized the new aesthetic:

• Interactive art: participatory
• Non-object poem: it only takes place when read
• Anti-Positivism: Against Concretist Rational Excesses
• Expressionist: as opposed to objectivity
• Temporal Poetry: Contrary to Concrete Universality

In short, what differentiate this new aesthetic of the previous one, that is, of Concretism, is the interaction between work and receiver, associated with artist expression — elements that, according to Neoconcretists, would be absent in Concretism. One example is Ferreira Gullar's book-poems. In them, the meaning of the work is built as the reader passes through the pages, which sometimes take on special formats according to the expressive intention of the poet.

solved exercises

Question 1 - (ENEM) The following poem belongs to Brazilian concrete poetry. The Latin term in its title means “epitalamium”, a poem or chant in honor of those who marry.

Whereas symbols and signs are generally used for objective demonstrations, when incorporated into the poem "Epithalamium — II",

A) acquire new meaning potential.

B) eliminate the subjectivity of the poem.

C) oppose the main theme of the poem.

D) reverse their original meaning.

E) become confused and mistaken.

Resolution

Alternative A. The symbols and signs incorporated in the poem acquire new meaning potential, such as the S in the English word she, which can represent a snake.

Question 2 - (AND EITHER)

from your memory

thousand

and

very

tos

out

ros

ros

tos

Sun

tos

little

coa

little

coa

pay

I love

my

ANTUNES, A. 2 or + bodies in the same space. São Paulo: Perspective, 1998.

Working with formal resources inspired by Concretism, the poem achieves an expressiveness that is characterized by

A) interruption of verbal fluency, to test the limits of rational logic.

B) formal restructuring of the word, to make the reader feel strange.

C) dispersion of verbal units, to question the meaning of memories.

D) word fragmentation, to represent the narrowing of memories.

E) renewal of traditional forms, to propose a new poetic vanguard.

Resolution

Alternative D. In the poem, it is possible to notice the fragmentation of words such as, for example, “many/ many”. Furthermore, their distribution in space suggests the narrowing of the memories mentioned in the title.

Question 3 - (AND EITHER)

MUSEUM OF PORTUGUESE LANGUAGE. Oswald de Andrade: the culprit of everything. 27 sept. 2011 to January 29 2012. São Paulo: Prol Gráfica, 2012.

Oswald de Andrade's poem goes back to the idea that Brazilianness is related to football. As for the question of national identity, the annotations around the verses constitute

A) possible directions for a critical reading of historical and cultural data.

B) classic form of Brazilian poetic construction.

C) rejection of the idea of ​​Brazil as the country of football.

D) interventions by a foreign reader in the exercise of poetic reading.

E) reminders of typically Brazilian words substituting the originals.

Resolution

Alternative A. Annotations are extra information, of a cultural-historical character, to direct, or facilitate, the reading.

Note

|1| baum = tree. Kind = child. Hund = dog. Haus = home.

Image credit

[1] Publisher 34 (reproduction)

by Warley Souza
Literature teacher