Study Guide #5-7 - Music, Modernist Poets and Artists, Brasilia / Contemp Arts

Ernesto Nazareth. “Odeon”

Brazilian pianist and composer

• Known for being a great name of maxixe, aka Brazilian tango (a subgenre of choro)

• Received lessons from a New Orleans piano teacher in Rio

• Choro at the time was lesser known as a genre and more a style of music that brought fun and excitement to parties

Alberto Nepomuceno, modinha

Considered the father of nationalism in Brazilian classical music

• Composed Danca de Negros in 1887 a year before abolition, one of the first comps. To ever use ethnic motifs

• Spent some time at then end of the 1800s start of 1900s studying and playing in Europe

• Performed August 4 1895 at the National Institute of Music – performed a series of self-composed songs in Portuguese, which created much criticism in those who deemed the language unfit for this style of music

Heitor Villa-Lobos

Villa-Lobos liked to make things up about capturing the essence of various ethnicities within brazil. He spent a good bit of his career in Paris and tried to capture Brazilian specificity in his songs.

• THE composer of Arte Moderna

• Claimed to have incorporated Brazilian folklore and did through indigenous vocabulary and instruments but was entirely intentional about it.

• 100 compositions while in Paris.

• Brazilian composer of international class.

Significance of Paris

Paris was the mecca for the most important Brazilian artists and Villa-Lobos lived there for two periods of his life before and after the dictatorship. He would host dinner parties where he played music and make people bring their own food and live off the food they brought for weeks

Darius Milhaud / Saudades do Brasil

Modern french composer part of Les Six which is a group of French and Swiss composers. His compositions are influenced by jazz and Brazilian music and he wrote Saudades do Brasil after a visit to Brasil in 1917-1918. Saudades do Brasil is known for using polytonality.

Mestres do chorinho

Mestres do chorinho are a part of MPB focused on the way of playing instruments together more than one particular sound. It includes music by Pixinguinha and Chico Buarque. It grew in Rio de Janeiro in the second half of the 1800s. It includes a diverse range of musical styles and has afro-brazilian (lundu and maxixe) and european influences all united the umbrella of mestres de chorinho.

Elsie Houston

vanguard artist and exotic performer

Brazilian singer who was a descendant of the second-wave of confederados (southern plantaion owners who moved to Brazil post-Civil War). She was close with all the modernists like Tarsila, Anita, Carvalho, and Oswalde. She died in New York at age 40. (can't find anything about her art online or on the readings)

Tarsila do Amaral

Studied in Barcelona & Paris; married Oswald Andrade who published Manifesto Pau Brasil and which was later stylized by Tarsila herself. Known for “Abaporu”, arguably the most famous Latin American painting.

Anita Malfatti

Studied expressionism in Germany (German expressionism) and is known ‘Tropical’ , a painting of a woman holding a fruit basket as she looks longingly away. She was more of an internationalist than a Brazilian. Held an exposition in São Paulo (50+ paintings… so prolific) but was heavily criticized and remained mostly in the dark after that.

Lasar Segall

Lasar Segall was a Lithuanian-born Brazilian artist known for his contributions to modern art. He was born on July 21, 1891, in Vilnius, Lithuania, and died on August 2, 1957, in São Paulo, Brazil. Segall was associated with expressionism and is recognized for his paintings, sculptures, and engravings that often depicted human suffering and social issues. He played a significant role in the development of modern art in Brazil and left a lasting impact on the art world.

Victor Brecheret / Brancusi

Famous sculptor, heavily inspired by Rodin via his Italian teachers (just think anothe Brazilian inspired by Europeans)

Di Cavalcanti

One of the few cariocas to participate in the semana de arte moderno; known for Samba (1990) which draws inspiration from the painting ‘Liberty leads the people’.

Portinari

Known for his painting “Primeira Missa” which depicts the first Catholic mass celebrated in Brazil (Thinking about the industrialization/institutionalization of a patropi). Also known for the “Retrato of Manuel Bandeira” (1931)

Cícero Dias

• influenced by European modernist movements, particularly Surrealism and Cubism; spent time in Paris.

• Dias's works often depicted dreamlike and fantastical landscapes

“Tarsila e as mulheres do Rio” / “Tarsiwald” / Pau Brasil 1924-25 (I’d say 26)

Her style known as “Pau Brasil” between the years 1924-26 helps create an aesthetic around Brazilian identity: favela full of color and homage to afro-brazilian culture using the Cubist theme she learned in Paris. She stylizes the fazenda, the colors, the people, modernization and industrialization, and creates a geometric language of it. The Bau Brasil style is what gives us “A Negra,” plain nude figure, sitting, single breast sagging

Theory: “Manifesto da Poesia Pau Brasil”

Theory of poetry that emphasizes uses realistic imagery and a return to primitivism. This was written by Oswald de Andrade. He condemns pre-established rules of poetry and complements the works of the european vanguard. He wants Brazilian culture/art to be exported just like the Pau Brasil was exported from Brazil during colonialism. Published on March 18, 1924.

Manuel Bandeira

a poet from Recife, Pernambuco. He discusses themes of childhood, his home in Recife, love, and friendship. One of his poems we read was Porquinho-da-índia.

Carlos Drummond de Andrade

• a Brazilian poet whose work aims to capture the struggles of Brazilians living in urban settings. He wrote crônicas, a type of short-fiction that was popular in Brazil at that time. He wrote the collection Alguma Poesia in 1930

• Wrote in the middle of the road poem

  • Middle of road is a metaphor for the middle of life

  • Repetition highlights surprise but also obsession

Mário de Andrade, Paulicéia Desvairada, Macunaíma

another poet from São Paulo who is most famous for writing the epic Macunaíma ("Ay que preguiça"). He also wrote the poetry collection Paulicéia Desvairada (Hallucinated City)

Oswald de Andrade / Revista de Antropofagia

wrote the Anthropofagia Manifesto and participated in the Semana de Arte Moderna. He was with Tarsila do Amaral for a long part of his life. He was part of the group of five with Mário de Andrade, Anita Malfatti, Tarsila do Amaral, and Menotti del Picchia.

Cecília Meireles

a big poet during the modern period and she worked with both scenes from everyday life and abstract transcendentalist subjects. Her work was influenced by her travels across the Americas and beyond. Faced gender discrimination but still had a successful career as a poet and professor

Murilo Mendes

a surrealist poet born in Minas Gerais who moved to Rio. His first poems were published in the Verde and Antropofagia magazines.

Creative features of Brazilian contemporary architecture

• “The modernist style was adopted after World War Two, and was characterized by minimalism, absence of excess in decoration, and functional forms. In Brazil, some particular strains of this movement were the brutalism (use of raw materials), open plans, and the use of stilts.”

• Oscar Niemayer - THE BRAZILIAN ARCHITECT. Responsible for Brasilia and Contemporary Museum.

BURLE-MARX. Dahlem & Kew Gardens. Early commissions. Sítio

• Dahlem & Kew - German gardens

• Landscaper, painter, designer

• Lived mostly in Rio

Theory: Pilot plan for Concrete Poetry / Augusto de Campos

“Instead of being a poem in the conventional sense, a concrete poem is akin to a diagram or drawing, a pattern on the printed page which forcefully and efficiently represents not only objects or concepts but the relationship between them, the invisible structures of sound and meaning that bind them together, their hidden affinities or antagonisms”

• Inherited from the German Bauhaus… looks to takeover the vanguard movement from the beginning of century. “SEM NOSTALGIA,” they want to actualize and activate the artistic vanguard and not just have a replay of the 1920s (people trying to forget about the lives that they lead.. many scarred by World War I).

Lígia Clark

Lígia Clark was a Brazilian artist and psychoanalyst. She was a prominent figure in the Neo-Concrete movement and the Tropicalia movement. Known for her innovative and interactive artworks. Clark's work often explored the relationship between the body and the artwork, inviting viewer participation and sensory experiences. She made significant contributions to the field of contemporary art and her work continues to be influential.