The poetic ethnography of Correia Dias:
a tour of indigenous traditions from Dias’ mythical pool
Amanda Reis Tavares Pereira
PEREIRA,
Amanda Reis Tavares. The poetic ethnography
of Correia Dias: a tour of indigenous traditions from Dias’ mythical pool. 19&20,
Rio de Janeiro, v. X, n. 1, jan./jun. 2015. https://www.doi.org/10.52913/19e20.X1.04b
[Português]
*
* *
And to arouse their interest in our women warriors, Orellana had been
informed that they possessed great treasures, starting with the five sumptuous
Temples of the Sun that enriched their lands. On the other hand, long before
the first brigs went down the Amazon River and were shot with arrows by the
presumed female warriors, Americo Vespucci and
Columbus had already heard of the tribe of the Amazons in other parts of
America, which showed that the same legend filled the imagination of many. But
let us move on to another very interesting point that is closely related to the
tradition of the Amazons: the muiraquitãs...
Amazônia misteriosa, Gastão Cruls
1.
In
1930, the Portuguese artist Fernando Correia Dias (1882-1935), cartoonist, ceramist, graphic artist and
designer, who had been living in Brazil since 1914, designed, at the request of
the Brazilian businessman Guilherme Guinle
(1882-1960), a pool, a fountain and two benches for the magnate’s property in Gávea, Rio de Janeiro [Figure 1].
2.
The
small pool intercepts the course of a stream on the edge of the forest that surrounds
the property. A large rock was incorporated into the project and placed near
the waterfall. Around the rock there were plants in vases with Marajoara motifs also seen on the wall tiles. On the right
side, the water runs its course through a small staircase. In the pool, just
over a meter deep, we can see aquatic plants known as water lilies. The project
was meant to be a garden with a pond for these plants.[1] On the other two sides one can also see small stairs
giving access to the water. On the left side, the only one with no stairs, one
can clearly see a sort of fountain through which the water passes. At the top
of the fountain there is a large muiraquitã. The
privileged position of this element within the project (the highest point of
the fountain) shows its relevance and what it can evoke: the legendary Yaci Uarua, or moon mirror, the
indigenous name of the lake associated to one of the most recurrent mythical
narratives of the Amazonian imaginary, the legend of the Amazon warrior women
and their muiraquitãs.
3.
Long
before occupying this privileged position in the project of Correia Dias, the
amulet and the narratives surrounding it had already traveled the world in the
texts and stories of European travelers, feeding the imagination of both
explorers and those who would never venture into the region.
4.
It is
said that, in the 16th century (1541-42), the first expedition was carried out
along the Amazon River, from Ecuador to the Atlantic Ocean, and its captain was
the Spaniard Francisco de Orellana (1490-1550). The chronicler of this
expedition, Fray Gaspar de Carvajal (1504-1584), records in his text the
group’s confrontation with the indian warriors, who
supposedly lived without the company of men near the estuary of the JamundáRiver:
9.
In the
preceding pages to the passage transcribed above, the friar mentioned the
existence of the Amazons and mentioned the precautions suggested by some indians if the Spanish group intended to enter their land.
This is the first written record that would mention the actual existence of
those women, who would never be seen again.
10.
According
to the Tupi tradition, they were the Icamiabas, indian warriors who
formed a tribe without any males near the estuary of the Jamundáriver.
The resemblance to narratives from classical antiquity would consolidate, for
the Europeans, the existence of those women, who, according to the Tupi legend, were responsible for the production of small
amulets, taken from the bottom of the magical lake called Yaci
Uarua.
11.
In the
18th century, records of the expedition of the French naturalist Charles-Marie
de la Condamine[3] (17701-1774) along the same river indicated the
presence of small green stones with zoomorphic shapes on the neck of the indians. According to the explorer, they were known as “The
Amazon stones”. Thus, it dates from that century the record of the association
between the legendary tribe and the muiraquitãs:
green batrachian-shaped artifacts made of stone, with double lateral holes not
visible from the front,[4]
which, according to the legend, were made by the indian
warriors.
12.
The
manufacturing of these artifacts, linked to the tradition of the Tapajó, Santarém and Conduri tribes, required time, specific skills, special
tools and accurate techniques, since jade is a difficult material to be worked
due to its hardness, which suggests that the people who crafted the pieces
mastered complex techniques.
13.
The muiraquitãs were found even in Central America, and
many of them were taken to Europe and given as gifts as amulets, as symbols of
good luck. Today, the few known pieces are in museums. The accounts by La
Condamine, dating from the 18th century, mentioned the healing properties of these
pieces, which were well-known by the indians.
References to these artifacts, its legends and the Amazon warrior women
circulated in the Old World, through the records and stories of explorers.
14.
In
Correia Dias’project, the muiraquitã
was resized to about 50cm and carved in stone. From the neck of indians to a stream in Rio de Janeiro, it was incorporated
as an ornament, and there is no doubt about the symbolic centrality of its
role, since it is facing the pool and it is above the waterfall, suggesting a
position of relevance. Seven vases with plants are spread around the pool to
complete the decoration.
15.
Before
this indigenous-inspired project, the Portuguese artist had already made many
works based on the Marajoara tradition.[5] In
1928, the National Ceramics Company already produced tiles he designed by
stylizing patterns created by that culture. In his studio in Botafogo, he produced ceramic pots inspired by the same
tradition, as well as lamps, carpets, bronze plates, iron objects, leather
safes.[6] From
his early years in Brazil, the elements of the national culture would be a
constant in his work.
16.
In
fact, even in Portugal, his interest in popular cultural manifestations was
part of his artistic repertoire. In the review by Virgílio
Ferreira published in the Portuguese newspaper A Águia,[7] on the occasion of his friend’s farewell exhibition,
it is possible to foresee that Correia Dias would be an artist involved in regional
issues. In drawing the attention of the readers to Correia Dias’ understanding
of the poetic and artistic aspect of Portuguese regionalisms, Virgílio aligns poetic with ethnographic aspects in Correia
Dias’ work, highlighting what he considers to be a benefit for the
ethnographer-designer[8]. This association strikes one as curious, since the
value of Correia Dias’ work was more related to a subjective skill than
properly to a “method” for ethnographic accounts, which would be expected from
this discipline. The advantage of the Portuguese ethnography would be precisely
a differentiated view, more sensitive to regional artistic elements. We might
suppose that what catches Virgílio’s attention and
makes him understand the work of Correia Dias as an association between poetry
and ethnography was Dias’ interest in stilyzing the
references to what he understood as national culture. The poetic dimension was,
therefore, subject to a re-reading of these elements.
17.
In
Brazil, the stilyzation of elements of the Marajoara tradition will mark its pioneering spirit towards
a new mode of appropriation of nativism, as pointed out by Paulo Herkenhoff: along with Theodoro Braga (1872-1953) and Manoel Pastana (1888-1984), Correia Dias “developed the idea of
decorative art with nativist elements. He would become a major champion of the
idea of an industrial design -in the graphic and decorative arts -based on the
nationalist heritage of the Marajoara
ceramic.”[9] O nacionalismo
na arte, an article by the Espírito Santo-born
artist Vieira da Cunha dedicated to the graphic arts and considered a
pioneering record of that nationalist intent, was written in the period in
which he shared the Botafogo studio with Dias
Correia.
18.
Therefore,
when carrying out the project for Guilherme Guinle,
the Portuguese artist is already well-known for his work using different
techniques such as drawing, ceramics, graphic arts, as well as ornaments for
the so-called neo-Marajoara or “Marajoara
déco” architecture. His interest in national art
would also bring him in touch with stylized elements of the Brazilian fauna and
flora,[10] in
addition to elements of African tradition. Thus, his career would pass through
all these references, and he would find in the expansion of “art déco”, in the 1930s and 1940s, the recognition of an
already dense work in the field of revisiting these traditions.
19.
The
ceramic vases with Marajoara motifs that can be seen
in some photos of his work were also common in his studio.[11] Probably the vases with plants that decorate the
initial project were produced under the same artistic concerns as those we
observe in the ceramic objects in the photographs. In the project, they seem to
be resistant enough to be exposed not only as a decorative object, but also as
good containers for plants. Therefore, they don’t seem to be small. In pictures
of his studio, one can see vases that are possibly similar to the ones in the
original project, which cannot be confirmed since the original ones are no
longer at the pool.
20.
Paul Hekhenhoff mentions not only the importance of Correia Dias
as a pioneer in the incorporation of nativism, but also the conservative
character of this appropriation:
21.
that remains faithful to the forms and materials of the vases, to the
permanence of the graphic identity of the symbol, to the graphic contrasts with
accentuation of archaic trends. [...] In the work of Correia Dias, the small
pieces seem to show greater experimental freedom of form and decoration, less
dependent upon the original ornamental motifs.[12]
22.
We
cannot state that the project confirms this interpretation of the relationship
between creative freedom and the vase size, but we suggest that what the critic
notices about the way appropriation occurs could also be related to the link
between ethnography and poetry, as suggested by Virgílio
Ferreira. Perhaps moving away from the graphic identity of Marajoara
standards could compromise the relationship or identification of his work with
that culture, which would compromise the suggested ethnographic character.
23.
Herkenhoff compares Correia Dias’ approach to the one taken by Theodoro Braga, another pioneer in the dissemination of
this stylization. Braga’s stylization was freer than his friend’s. However,
whereas Herkenhoff establishes this contrast, he also
identifies in Braga’s style a difference between his Marajoara
stylization and the academicism of his painting, as exemplified by the work Muiraquitã [Figure 2],[13] dated 1920.
24.
Braga’s
painting serves for a reflection on the revision of the appropriation of
indigenous tradition proposed in the early decades of the 20th century, which
demands another dialogue with this tradition -one that is distinct from the
recurring one in the 19th century, when the indian
represented according to the European academic tradition could be understood as
a mythical element, founder of a new nation freed from the Portuguese dominion.
Theodor Braga’s O muiraquitã,
although contextually inserted in the discussions concerning the modernization
of this appropriation, still shows characteristics of a representation mode
from the 19th century, as one can see in the bodies of the indian
women.
25.
Therefore,
it is interesting to notice that this artist represents a time of transition
that happened in the first decades of the 20th century, since he adopts a
modern stand in his decorative art projects, while revealing an European
tradition in the approach to nativist themes in his paintings.
26.
The
20th century revisited this relationship by proposing another interchange.
During this period, there was an aesthetic revision of national themes and of
the way of spreading and maintaining this nationalism, so that the European
filter would be abandoned on behalf of the appreciation of indigenous art as
artistic creation, in opposition to the previous representation of the indian figure.[14] Eliseu Visconti (1866-1944), Theodoro Braga
and Manoel Pastana,
together with Correia Dias, would be fundamental activists for the
dissemination of this aesthetic, which would find in an industrialized society
the essential tools to spread this new national iconography.[15]
27.
Therefore,
the project herein analyzed is part of this new appropriation and is created at
a time when the work of these pioneers starts to gain followers, which resulted
in the strengthening of “art déco”and “Marajoara déco”. Here, one no
longer sees a gaze concerned with the European representation of the indigenous
man, but a stylized appropriation of elements of his material culture, such as
vases and motifs in tiles, as well as his mythological symbols, such as the muiraquitã.
28.
There
are many versions of the legends associated to the muiraquitã.
They had been circulating through America and Europe since the 16th century.
Usually linked to the Tapajó tradition, which
associates the muiraquitãs to the Amazon
warrior women, a recurring story says that they were manufactured by these very
women. At full moon nights, the warrior women would receive the visit of indians from a chosen tribe, with whom they would spend the
night. That same night (or at midnight, in some versions of the legend), they
would plunge into a magical lake around which their male indian warriors stood, and would take some soft clay from
the bottom that would turn into muiraquitãs,
amulets they would give to the indians. They would
hang them around the indians’ necks as talismans that
would help in hunting, bring good luck and happiness, and work as a symbol of
the fertility of their special encounter. In another version of the legend, at
the bottom of lake lived the muiraquitãs’
mother, who used to give the amulet to the women by occasion of a similar
event: receiving the indians. Some versions also say
that the Icamiabas (the Amazons) poured
scented water from vases to purify the lake before reaching down for the
amulets. In Correia Dias’ project there are also vases around the pool -though
diverted from the functions of carrying water or groceries, and set as
decoration.
29.
It is
interesting to remember that, in the Amazon region, the mythical figures
associated with water, such as the “Iara mermaid”and the “mother of water”, are recurrent. The
figures of Yemanjá and Oxum
were also incorporated to the national imaginary, endorsing water as a mythical
space.[16]
30.
In the
context of an industrial society of the early 20th century, when the concept of
modernity foresees this re-reading, it is interesting to point out that the
appropriation of this tradition is submitted to a Western project of modernity.
All the rhetorics about a new conception of the indian still lies under the same hierarchy. It uses
stylized indigenous elements, but not their material culture itself, since the
function of the incorporated elements is different from the ones in the Marajoara culture, in which iconography has specific
symbolism.[17] and
vases are manufactured to store food or serve as funerary urns.[18] This
new perspective does not propose a dialogue with the indigenous tradition
through questioning or appreciating its culture, but rather stylizing its
figures and shapes.
31.
The
iconography of the pool tiles illustrates the interest in stylizing: it
prioritized the aesthetic effect of the geometrization of the visual elements.
We can identify the dialogue it established, especially in the anthropomorphic
figures on the sides of the pool. The design of the tiles suggests a human
face, for there are elements similar to eyes, nose and mouth. In the Marajoara tradition, the anthropomorphization
in ceramics was recurrent, and so was the representation of the eyes and nose
in the shape of a “Y”or “T”.[19] The latter would be closer to the image of the tiles
of this pool, and there are also two squares representing the eyes. On the two
tiles which represent the mouth there seems to be a suggestion of teeth at the
bottom part. All tiles are monochromatic and its designs are made in relief,
like the geometric outline. Serving as a support for the plants, the top tiles
compose a purely geometric pattern. Near the muiraquitã amulet, a row of tiles
with a different geometric motif surrounds the waterfall. These tiles that
surround the muiraquitã
and the ones at the top seem to show stylizations that are even further from
their original referents.
32.
It is
curious that, despite their apparent dialogue with the Marajoara
culture, the tiles do not belong to it; they are associated to a vast
Portuguese tradition. Therefore, in this work, Correia Dias combines the
nativist nationalism with a long Portuguese tradition by incorporating the tile
as the primordial material of the project.
33.
Contextually,
the decade that separates Theodoro Braga’s
“Europeanized” muiraquitã
from Correia Dias’ “modern” one is marked by the expansion of industry, the
press, and photography, as well as the consolidation of ethnography,
facilitating the circulation and reception of images of the Amazon region,
which, since the 16th century, had been seen through mythical lenses, like in
the narrative of Friar Gaspar de Carvajal. In the pool, the evocation of this
legend is suggested not only by the muiraquitã - much larger than real ones - but also by the
water lilies and the vases, adorning a neo-Marajoara
architectural project installed in a waterfall - a recurrent symbolic space in
the mythical imagination of Brazil. It represents the evocation of a narrative
that is linked less to an experience of that culture than to an allegory about
it.[20]
34.
It is
essential to remember that the during the period that separates the works by
the artist from Pará (1920) from the ones by the Portuguese artist (1930), the
appropriation of indigenous traditions remained and it was gradually
“digested”, as anthropophagy might suggest, into a solid dialogue with
different discussions about Modernity.
35.
In the
early 1920s, Vicente do Rego Monteiro (1899-1970), an artist from Recife whose work was
exhibited in the Brazilian Modern Art Week of 1922, was very important in
establishing a new form of appropriation of indigenous traditions. In 1920, he
exhibited indigenous-inspired watercolors in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and
Recife. Although the dialogue with this tradition is present in almost all of
his work, it is worth highlighting the importance of Lendas, crenças e talismãs
dos índios do Amazonas and Algumas
vistas de Paris, illustrated by the artist and published in France in 1923 and
1925, respectively.
36.
In
1925, the writer from Rio de Janeiro, Gastão Cruls (1888-1959), published Amazônia misteriosa, a novel about
explorers who get lost in the jungle and find the legendary tribe of Icamiabas. To compose his narrative, Gaston Cruls used historical narratives about the Amazons as
reference. Without knowing the region, he wrote the novel based on extensive
studies about the experiences of expeditions carried out in the area.
37.
In the
same decade, the Brazilian Modern Art Week of 1922 took place, supporting the
revisiting of the national historical past. The literary works Macunaíma (1928)
by the São Paulo-born artist Mário de
Andrade
(1893-1945) and Cobra Norato
(1931) by the gaucho artist Raul Bopp (1898-1984) were fundamental to the movement. Based
on Amazonian legends, they were written after their authors visited the region.[21] In Macunaíma: o herói sem nenhum caráter,
the main character loses his muiraquitã, an event that sets the narrative in motion.
38.
Much
has been discussed about the existence of the tribe of women warriors and their
muiraquitãs in the Brazilian Historical and
Geographical Institute (IHGB), founded in 1838. In the 1840s, the then director
of Institute, Manoel de Araújo Porto Alegre, wrote a play entitled A estátua
amazônica: uma comédia arqueológica[22] (The
Amazon statue: an archaeological comedy), illustrating the tension between the
scientific and fictional narratives about the region and the persistence of
this kind of narrative in the Brazilian imaginary. The inspiration for the play
would have been the case of the French explorer Francis de Laporte (1810-1880),
known as Comte de Castelnau, who found
39.
a stone statue in the region of Barra do Rio
Negro (now the city of Manaus), which was sent to France and exhibited in the
Louvre Museum together with other objects collected. Although very rare (no
more than 50 pieces are known currently), other idols and little stone figures
were found in the Amazon region, especially dating from 1870 on. Nowadays they
are considered pieces of the pre-Cabral (the so-called culture of Santarém) era, representing human and animal images. But at
the time of Castelnau they were seen as clear
evidence of the civilization of the Amazons! The explorer was sure that the
artifacts did not belong to primitive societies. To explain their origin, he
used the seductive myth of the female warriors in an interview to the Paris
newspaper L'Illustration.[23]
40.
Considered
a huge fallacy by Porto Alegre, the exhibition inspired him to create a
caricature of Castelnau, the French explorer Count Sarcophagin, whose name is a metonym for the fanciful
imagination of explorers, who interpret their findings in an extravagant way[24]. The
explorer, also present in the narrative of Gaston Cruls,
becomes a fictional character, being incorporated into the Amazonian imaginary.
41.
Since
the first European accounts, however, the jungle has evoked a fanciful,
mysterious, unknown and wonderful imaginary, an inexhaustible source for the
expectations not only of scientists and explorers, but also of artists. Thus,
in order to understand the region, perhaps it would be more instigating to
resort to these texts than to maps or scientific records, since the Amazonian
region could be interpreted through the lens of the historical projection of
these Western narratives.
42.
To all
of the previously mentioned events from the 1930s, one must add the debate on
the applied arts and the art déco, which gains
momentum and gets disseminated. Also from the 1930s, the book Introdução àarqueologia
brasileira: etnografia e história[25] (Introduction to Brazilian Archeology: Ethnography
and History, 1934) by Angyone Costa, boosts this debate in Brazil. Between Theodoro Braga’s painting and the literary work of Angyone, discussions about the place of ethnography in the
human sciences are intensified, and, consequently, the potential unfolding
interests about alterity are relocated, which will lead inevitably to a new
projection and appropriation of the indigenous tradition.[26]
43.
It is
intriguing, then, the tension between the scientific and the fictional
discourses which have formed the imaginary of the region since the 16th
century, but, above all, since the late 19th and early 20th centuries -a period
of consolidation not only for ethnography as a discipline, but also for the
historical and aesthetic revisions already mentioned, concerning that industrial
context.
44.
It is
therefore possible to consider Correia Dias’project
as a plunge into this imaginary, appropriated by a foreigner who developed in
Brazil a considerable and still not well-known work on the indigenous
tradition, which was the result of his interest in nativism and his contact
with Theodoro Braga’s work. The project for
Guilherme Guinle’s residence is one more chapter of
this appropriation, which interacts with the elements chosen for it. When the
work of Correia Dias proposes an architectural-landscape interference in the
course of a waterfall, it also interferes in the experience of that space[27],
incorporating narratives and symbols -associated with healing, protection and
prosperity, for instance -seen through the lens of a so-called modern project
of appropriation of the indigenous traditions.
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_________________________
[1] HERKENHOFF, Paulo.
Design e selva: o caminho da modernidade brasileira. The jornal of Decorative
and Propaganda Arts
1875-1945, n.21, 1995.
[2] ACUÑA,
Cristobal de; CARVAJAL, Gaspar de; ROJAS, Alonso de. Descobrimentos do Rio das Amazonas. Availabe
at: <http://www.brasiliana.com.br/obras/descobrimentos-do-rio-das-amazonas/pagina/59/texto>. S.d. Accessed on
August 1st, 2014.
[3] The work of the French
researcher la Condamine in the Amazon River basin, presented in 1745 at the
Paris Academy of Sciences (Relation abrégée d’un
voyage fait dans l’intérieur de l’Amérique
Méridionale) encouraged the European interest in the
region.
[4] BARATA, Frederico O
muiraquitã e as contas do Tapajó. Revista do Museu
Paulista, São Paulo, n.
08, 1954. p.229-232.
[5] Marajoara refers to the
indigenous people who inhabited the island of Marajó,
in the Brazilian state of Pará. According to the researcher Denise Pahl Shaan (1996) "Marajoara
art is the art developed in the Marajo Island since 400 AD which came to light
through findings of ceramist activity that was established in the region around
100 or 200 years before the arrival of Europeans on the continent, according to
dates now widely accepted. This archaeological material has peculiar
characteristics that, on the one hand, attract the curiosity of the researcher,
but on the other hand bring about many uncertainties and impose difficulties on
the execution of scientific research work. It is a precious material in
quantitative and qualitative terms, with many pieces that stand out for their
technical refinement, with harmonic and unique shapes and designs, undoubtedly
representing one of the finest colored ceramic of the recent prehistory of the
Americas. By contrast, there is no ethnography of the society that produced and
used it for about nine hundred years. There are many questions about the origin
of these people and the reason for their disappearance, as well as about how
they lived and how they adapted themselves to the complicated physical and
geographical conditions of the Marajó Island."
[6] HERKENHOFF, op. cit.
[7] Virgílio
Ferreira (1888-1944) was curator of the Portuguese Ethnological Museum (1912)
and the National Museum of Ancient Art (1915). He taught Aesthetics and Art
History at the University of Coimbra (as of 1921) and Archeology (as of 1923),
and directed the Machado de Castro Museum in Coimbra, from November 24, 1929 to
1944, when he died.
[8] In March 1914,
the Portuguese magazine A Águia
published an article about the exhibition of cartoons that Fernando Correia
Dias had done at Salão da Ilustração
Portuguesa. Besides commenting the exhibit, the article, written by his friend Virgílio Correia, was also a kind of a farewell, since the
exhibited works would cross the Atlantic Ocean along with the artist who
thought Brazil was a fertile ground for research. At the end of the article, Virgílio says goodbye, clarifying that "Correia Dias
is going to Brazil to exhibit his work, try to apply his designer skills. May
fortune not let him forget that above all, the Portuguese Ethnography expects
his collaboration as an illustrator, because there is no one else that
understands and feels so deeply all the loving, poetic and artistic qualities
of Portugal’s regionalisms."
[9] HERKENHOFF, op. cit,
p. 119.
[10] Correia Dias had
access to the studies of Theodoro Braga in A
planta brasileira (copiada
do natural) aplicada à ornamentação”,
which features stylizations of Brazilian fauna and flora in addition to
indigenous ceramics, especially Marajoara.
[11] Unfortunately, most of
the ceramic pieces produced by Correia Dias have been lost. Most of his pieces
are only known through photos. His collection is preserved by his family, in
Rio de Janeiro, and is not available for consultation. The first husband of the
Brazilian poet Cecilia Meireles (1901-1964), Correia
Dias had three daughters with her in Brazil.
[12] HERKENHOFF, op. cit., p. 120.
[13] When he made this
work, the artist Theodoro Braga was already committed
to spreading modern Brazilian iconography, the result of his research about the
national fauna and flora, as well as of studies on the Marajoara
ceramics. Like Correia Dias, he worked with different artistic media. Like many
other artists from the 19th and 20th centuries, he was a
"multifaceted" professional." He graduated as a lawyer in 1893
from the Law School of Recife, the same city where he started his artistic
training around 1892 with Jerônimo José Telles Júnior, a landscaping master in Pernambuco, who,
according to the historian Edilson da Silveira
Coelho, was responsible for the construction of his artistic personality.
Already in Rio de Janeiro in 1894, Theodoro Braga
studied painting at the National School of Fine Arts with Belmiro
de Almeida, Daniel Bérard and Zeferino
da Costa, receiving the top grade when he graduated in 1898. In 1899, he
received the Travel to Europe Award and went to Paris, where he studied at the
Julian Academy with Jean-Paul Laurens, master of French historical painting. In
his stay in Paris, Theodoro Braga kept in touch with
the French decorative art, and could visit several other European countries,
studying and gathering information and improving techniques. Back to Belém, his homeland, in 1905, he could develop a painting
alluding to the foundation of the city, commissioned by that municipality,
strengthening his links with historical painting. There, he produced A
planta brasileira (copiada
do natural) aplicada à ornamentação
- a visual repertoire written by hand whose introduction was signed by Manoel Campello - in which the
artist uses the flora and fauna and decorative patterns taken from pottery
produced by indigenous cultures, especially the Marajoara,
easily identifiable due to its geometric and labyrinthic motifs." PASCOAL, Paola. Theodoro
Braga e as proposições para uma arte brasileira. 19&20, Rio de Janeiro, v. VIII, n. 1, jan./jun.
2013. Available at: <http://www.dezenovevinte.net/artistas/tb_pp.htm>. Accessed on September 9th, 2013.
[14] MALTA, Marize. Percursos na construção de novas iconografias
brasileiras: do selvagem romântico às grafias marajoaras art
déco. Available at: <http://www.snh2011.anpuh.org/resources/anais/14/1308172766_ARQUIVO_MALTAMarizeDiscussoesacercadeumanovaiconografiabrasileira.pdf>. Accessed on October 30th, 2013.
[15]
The techniques used by both of them were relevant precisely because they
enabled the development of large-scale production of objects that iconographically propagated an updated national aesthetic
concept. Having been a student of Eugène Grasset (1845-1917) in Paris, Eliseu Visconti returned to Brazil interested in applying,
without much success, his studies of the method he had learned in France of
ornamental composition based on the stylization of native flora and fauna. In
1901, he held an exhibition at the National School of Fine Arts featuring more
than seventy works of decorative art applied to industry. The critic Gonzaga
Duque deplored the fact that the Brazilian industry rejected Eliseu Visconti's project, criticizing the fact that they
"preferred the servility of bad models from abroad."
[16] The mythical connotations about water are also present in the legend of
the victoria amazonica
water lily. It is attributed to the Tupi-Guarani people, the legend of Naia, an indian who wanted to be
taken by the moon. According to the legend, the moon goddess that always lurked
behind the mountain used to kidnap women of great beauty to turn them into
stars. Naia's dream was to be taken by the goddess,
although she was warned that once she had been taken, she would not be able to
return to Earth. Indifferent to the warning, she unsuccessfully tried to reach
the moon on moonlit nights. One night, very tired, Naia
stopped to drink water from a lake. Due to her exhaustion, she fell in the
water and died. The goddess, feeling sorry for the young woman who had made
such an effort, decided to turn her into a star different from every other
star, turning her, then, into a water lily, an aquatic plant that only blooms
at night. Like the legend of Naia, the mythologizing
of the Amazon region and the tribe of women it was named after helped spread
the imaginary shared by many explorers about the place.
[17] PAHL
SHAAN, Denise. A linguagem iconográfica da cerâmica marajoara.
Dissertação de mestrado. PUC Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, 1996.
[18] Patrícia Godoy mentions that the stylization
of Marajoara models requires geometric studies, which
can change the patterns. She also says that artists not always know the
original motifs. This leads us to ratify that it is the aesthetic interest that
will be privileged by that nationalist intention. Available at: <http://www.unicamp.br/chaa/rhaa/atas/atas-IEHA-v3-078-086-patricia%20bueno%20godoy.pdf>. Accessed on October 15th, 2013.
[19] PAHL SHAAN. Cultura marajoara. Rio de Janeiro: Senac Nacional, 2009.
[20] We think of the ethnographic
allegory proposal by James Clifford (2002): "The allegory (from Greek allos, ‘other’, and agoreuein,
‘talk’) usually denotes a practice in which a narrative continually refers to
another pattern of ideas or events. It is a representation that interprets
itself […]Any story tends to generate another story in the mind of the reader
(listener), to repeat or displace some other previous story. The understanding
of ethnography as an allegory implies the acceptance that the Other cannot be
represented, given the complexity of the experience" (p. 65). “Allegory
urges us to say, as far as any cultural description is concerned, not ‘this
represents - or symbolizes - that’, but ‘this is a story (which carries a
moral) about that’”(p. 66).
[21] In O turista aprendiz
(1927), Mário de Andrade publishes the photos taken by himself along his
journey.
[22] To access the full
text, see: <http://www.brasiliana.usp.br/bbd/handle/1918/01514900>. Accessed on September 23th,
2013.
[23] LANGER, Jhonni, available at <http://www.revistadehistoria.com.br/secao/artigos/cacadores-da-lenda-perdida>. Consult: LANGER, Jonni: As
amazonas: história e cultura material no Brasil oitocentista. Available at: <http://www.cerescaico.ufrn.br/mneme/pdf/mneme10/amazonas.pdf>.
Accessed on February 2nd, 2015.
[24] In Como era ardiloso
o meu francês: Charles-Marie de La Condamine e a
Amazônia das Luzes, Neil Safier
analyses the records and lectures of La Condamine on the Amazon region upon his
return to France, demonstrating the political interests behind the words, as
well as the discursive strategies and copies he made use of for composing his
texts, apparently a personal and original narrative about of the region.
Available at: <http://www.scielo.br/pdf/rbh/v29n57/a04v2957>. Acessed on 02.12.2015. KERN, Daniela.
The Amazonian Idol: the naissance of a national symbol in the Empire of Brazil
(1848-1885). Disponível
em: <https://www.academia.edu/10956147/2013_The_Amazonian_Idol_the_naissance_of_a_national_symbol_in_the_Empire_of_Brazil_1848-1885>.
Accessed on February 12th, 2015.
[25] To access the full text, see: <http://www.brasiliana.com.br/brasiliana/colecao/obras/184/introducao-a-arqueologia-brasileira-etnografia-e-historia>. Accessed on February 2nd, 2015.
[26] Although it is not our
focus, this work flirts with the discussions on the appropriation of the
so-called primitive art by the major Western centers. Concerning this issue, we
highlight the contribution of the anthropologist Sally Price (2000, p. 56):
"Surely, an issue that will arise frequently in this book is to what
extent we can see all kinds of art dealing with the same 'core issues' and to
what extent the artistic production of different people reflects the particular
way in which each one sees the world and his place in it." In this work,
the author questions the relevance of the application of Western concepts and
art methods to cultures that do not share this framework. Since the questioning
about the so-called connoisseurs of art (critics, especially) to the formation
of large collections of primitive art, the book addresses the doubts about
permanence of these centers as legitimizing places for the artistic value of
primitive art, showing the persistence of hierarchy between the
"primitive" and "civilized" and how it still occurs. The
insistence on anonymity of primitive artists would be an example. It is
interesting for us to reflect on how the historical context fosters this hierarchy.
[27] Regarding the
experience of such interference, remember Paisagem e memória, by Simon Schama (1996): "If a
child’s view of nature can generate memories, myths and complex meanings, the
frame with which our adult eyes contemplate the landscapes should be much more
elaborate. For though we are accustomed to situate nature and human perception
in two different fields, in fact they are inseparable. Before being a relief
for the senses, the landscape is the mind’s construct. They consist of both
layers of memories and rock strata (p. 17). "Understanding the ghostly
outline of an ancient landscape, under the superficial layer of the
contemporary, is equivalent to intensely notice the permanence of the essential
myths" (p. 27).