Author: de Andrade, Mário

Source: Portuguese Studies, Volume 24, Number 1, 15 March 2008 , pp. 95-115(21)

Publisher: Modern Humanities Research Association

Abstract:

In `The Modernist Movement', the leading figure of Brazil's 1920s avant-garde generation offers a self-critical post-mortem of the modernist adventure, two decades on. Andrade first evokes the energy, turbulence and social character of the movement: the ambivalent relationships between the anti-bourgeois artists and intellectuals, their patrons, the paulista coffee `aristocracy', the provincial yet cosmopolitan spirit of São Paulo, the `folksy' conservatism of Rio de Janeiro, and the regions. He then focuses insistently on the Modernists' necessarily `destructive' spirit of rupture, but also the principles they succeeded in putting on the agenda: the right to artistic experimentation; the modernization of artistic thinking, and the consolidation of a national consciousness. But underlying the patriotic rhetoric of `rootedness in the land' was a chauvinist conservatism, mirroring the contorted nationalist posturing in which the debate about the language question became mired. Andrade reserves his severest criticisms for last, lamenting the Modernists' hedonist individualism and abstentionism, and their irresponsible failure to engage `socio-politically' with the pressing realities of the day.

Portuguese
Em `O Movimento Modernista', a principal figura da geração de vanguarda dos anos 20 apresenta um balanço auto-crítico da aventura modernista, duas décadas depois. Mário evoca primeiro a energia, a turbulência e o caráter social do movimento: as relações ambivalentes entre os artistas e intelectuais anti-burgueses, seus patrocinadores, a `aristocracia' cafeeira paulista, o espírito provinciano mas cosmopolita de São Paulo, o conservadorismo `folclórico' do Rio de Janeiro, e as regiões. Passa a enfocar insistentemente o espírito necessariamente `destruidor' dos modernistas, mas também os princípios que conseguiram colocar na pauta: o direito à pesquisa artística; a modernização do pensamento artístico, e a consolidação de uma consciência nacional. Mas subjacente à retórica patriota de `enraizamento na terra' se encontrava um conservadorismo ufanista que refletia também as contorções nacionalistas em que se afundou o debate em torno da questão da língua. Mário guarda para o final a crítica mais severa, lamentando o individualismo hedonista e o abstencionismo dos modernistas, que se esquivaram irresponsavelmente de comprometer-se `socio-politicamente' com as questões prementes do dia.

Keywords: Brazil; modernist; nationalism; São Paulo; Brasil; modernistas; nacionalismo; São Paulo

Document Type: Research article

Publication date: 2008-03-15

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• The only English-language journal devoted to the literature, culture, and history of Portugal, Brazil, and the Portuguese-speaking countries of Africa. Launched in 1985, it received the 'Best New Journal Award' of the Conference of Editors of Learned Journals in 1987. It publishes articles, translations, previously unpublished historical and literary texts, bibliographical information, and a survey of research and reviews.

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