Tarsila do Amaral (1886 - 1973)
Tarsila do Amaral was a Brazilian painter and illustrator, one of the central artists of Brazilian painting and of the first phase of the Brazilian modernist movement, alongside Anita Malfatti. Her painting Abaporu, from 1928, inaugurated the anthropophagic movement in the visual arts.
Together with Candido Portinari, Di Cavalcanti, José Pancetti and some other painters, Tarsila; owner of an enviable bibliographical reference – I believe that all important and less important aspects of her and her art have already been explored – is part of the history of modern Brazilian art itself.
The ‘Caipirinha’ dressed by Jean Patou and (Paul) Poiret[1], lived through the prodigious effervescence and madness of the 1920s in Brazil and France, and took great advantage of them.
She studied with William Zadig, Mantovani, Pedro Alexandrino and Georg Elpons, in Brazil; in Paris, with Emile Renard at the “Académie Julian”, André Lhote, Albert Gleizes and Fernand Léger, who would exert great influence, due to the poetics followed by both artists incorporating into their works the dynamics of industrial transformations[2] in France and Brazil with their particular specificities.
She had a relationship with Pablo Picasso whose work did not influence her, she saw the production of the Dadaists and Futurists up close, came into contact with Blaise Cendrars, Ambroise Vollard, Eric Satie, Léonce Rosenberg Jean Cocteau, Jules Supervielle, Jules Romains, Arthur Rubinstein, Maurice Raynal, Paul Morand, Frederic Brancusi and many others.
Aracy A. Amaral[3] and Sônia Salzstein[4] and other important names in our arts have already done their job.
Their tones, of absurd intensity and strength, are reminiscent of the childhood of the painter born in Capivari, in the interior of São Paulo. Since then, Tarsila has adopted, in an almost rebellious and challenging way, each excessive color in order to better represent a watercolor country.
However, anyone who believes she is a strictly rural painter is mistaken.
Sagrado Coração de Jesus; ost, 100x76, 1904
Biography of Tarsila do Amaral
She was born on September 1, 1886, at Fazenda São Bernardo, in Capivari, in the interior of São Paulo, into a physiocratic, patriarchal, authoritarian home and legitimate representative of the powerful São Paulo coffee oligarchy – already heiress of a considerable fortune and several farms, where Tarsila spent her childhood and adolescence, she was taught to read, write, embroider and speak French.
Her leisure time was divided between the piano, country walks and meticulous research in the numerous volumes in her father's library. She studied in São Paulo, at a convent school in the Santana neighborhood and at Colégio Nossa Senhora de Sion. She completed her studies in Barcelona, Spain, at the Colegio Sacré-Coeur de Jésus.[5] Figure 1 shows the first painting by “Tharcilla” according to “Raisonné Tarsila do Amaral (see Vol. 1, page 63).
First marriage and motherhood
1906: She married her maternal cousin, the doctor André Teixeira Pinto; but André and the conservatism of the time prevented her from any artistic development, causing this first marriage to fail quickly. With him she had her only daughter, the girl Dulce, born in the same year of the marriage. Tarsila separated soon after the birth of her daughter and returned to live with her parents on the farm, with her daughter.
Early career
1916: She began studying sculpture with the sculptor William Zadig and Mantovani in 1916. The following year, she began to learn painting with Pedro Alexandrino Borges[6] and later, she studied with the German George Fischer Elpons.
1920: Encouraged by João de Souza Lima[7] – a friend of the family Tarsila, who had obtained a scholarship from the “Artistic Pension Commission of the State of São Paulo – read Freitas Valle and Villa Kyrial – who was living in Paris; travels to Paris and attends the Julian Academy, where she drew nudes and live models intensively. She also studied at the Émile Renard Academy. The artist also studied with Lhote and Gleizes, other cubist masters. Cendrars also introduced Tarsila to painters such as Picasso, sculptors such as Brancusi, musicians such as Stravinsky and Eric Satie. She became friends with the Brazilians who were there, such as the composer Villa Lobos, the painter Di Cavalcanti, and the patrons Paulo Prado and Olívia Guedes Penteado.
Tarsila offered very Brazilian lunches in her studio and was invited to dinners at the homes of famous people of the time. She dressed with the best tailors and, in homage to Santos Dumont, she wore a red cape that was immortalized by her in the self-portrait “Manteau Rouge”, from 1923.
A negra; ost, 100x80, 1923.
1922: Her painting “Passport” was admitted to the “Salon Officiel des Artistes Français”.
She exhibited at the Salão de Belas Artes de São Paulo at the Palácio das Indústrias.
Despite having had contact with new trends and avant-garde movements and, therefore, having already been introduced to Modernism, Tarsila only adopted modernist ideas upon returning to Brazil in 1922. She was introduced by Anita Malfatti to the modernists, Oswald de Andrade, Mário de Andrade and Menotti Del Picchia. These new friends began to frequent her studio, forming the Group of Five.
1923: In January 1923, in Europe, Tarsila joined Oswald de Andrade and the couple traveled through Portugal, Spain and Italy. Back in Paris, she studied with cubist artists: she attended the Lhote Academy, led by Albert Gleizes, met Pablo Picasso, Blaise Cendrars and became friends with the painter Fernand Léger, visiting the academy of this master of cubism, from whom Tarsila retained, mainly, the smooth painting technique and a certain influence of Léger's modeling. She painted the work “A negra” (The Black Woman), which greatly impressed Léger.
Pau-Brasil and Anthropophagy Phases
I found in Minas the colors I loved as a child.
They taught me that they were ugly and country.
But later I took revenge on the oppression, transferring them
to my canvases: the purest blue, violet pink,
vivid yellow, singing green, … Tarsila.
1924: In 1924, in the midst of a journey of “rediscovery of Brazil” with the Brazilian modernists and the French-Swiss poet Blaise Cendrars – Carnival in Rio de Janeiro and Holy Week in the historic cities of Minas Gerais – Tarsila began her artistic phase “Pau-Brasil”, endowed with markedly tropical colors and themes and Brazilians, where the "national animals" (mentioned in a poem by Carlos Drummond de Andrade) appear, the exuberance of the Brazilian fauna and flora, the machines, rails, symbols of urban modernity.
Isidoro's Revolution[8].
1926: She married Oswald de Andrade in Oct.1926[9] and, in the same year, she held her first solo exhibition, at the Percier Gallery, in Paris.
President Dilma Rouseff and the Obama couple next to the painting Abaporu
1928: In 1928, Tarsila painted Abaporu[10], whose name of indigenous origin means "man who eats human flesh", a work that inspired the Anthropophagic Movement, idealized by her husband.
Oswald was impressed with the painting and said it was the best Tarsila had ever done. He called his friend and writer Raul Bopp, who also thought it was the wonderful painting. They thought it looked like an indigenous, cannibalistic figure, and Tarsila remembered her father's Tupi Guarani dictionary. The painting was named “Abaporu” – the artist said that Abaporu was an image from her unconscious, and had to do with the stories of monsters that ate people that black women told her in her childhood – and that it meant a man who eats human flesh, the cannibal.
Oswald wrote the Cannibalistic Manifesto and founded the Cannibalistic Movement. The Abaporu figure symbolized Anthropophagy which proposed the digestion of foreign influences, as in the cannibal ritual (in which one devours the enemy in the belief that one can absorb his qualities), so that national art would gain a more Brazilian appearance[11].
In July 1929, Tarsila exhibited her paintings for the first time in Brazil, in Rio de Janeiro. That same year, due to the crash of the New York Stock Exchange, known as the Crisis of 1929, Tarsila and her family of farmers felt the effects of the coffee crisis in their pockets and Tarsila lost her farm. She had lost practically all of her assets and her fortune.
It is worth outlining the production cycles and the consequences of the “crack” of the American Stock Exchange. Brazilian development was happening in leaps and bounds; in the 17th century with the sugar mills, then it was the turn of the gold miners of Minas Gerais, followed by the coffee barons in the lands of Rio de Janeiro until the first decades of the 20th century, with the dominance of the agrarian oligarchy of the São Paulo coffee industry and the Brazilian edition – but no less grandiose than the European one – of the “Belle Époque”. The coffee crisis began in 1920; the world consumed around 22 million bags of coffee and we – proud of our monoculture – produced 21 million, which represented 75 percent of our exports, a fact that led to many, many bankruptcies before the “Wall Street” crash. In 1929, the harvest reached 21 million bags and exports continued to fall. The American crisis in the period 19–24.10.29 with the crash of the NYC Stock Exchange, caused the bankruptcy of thousands of North American companies, ruined agricultural production and caused brutal unemployment. The economic depression in the United States immediately had repercussions on the world market, leading international capitalism to the greatest crisis in its history. Brazil and São Paulo could not remain immune, thanks to our economic weakness. The Brazilian economy – based on agriculture and exports – could not withstand the global downturn and the economic crisis spread throughout the country. [12].
And Tarsila?
In 1930, Oswald de Andrade separated from Tarsila because he decided to marry the revolutionary Patrícia Galvão, known as Pagú. Tarsila suffered greatly with the separation and with the loss of the farm(s), which led her to dedicate herself even more to her work in the artistic world. She obtained the position of curator of the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo and began organizing the catalog of the collection of the first art museum in São Paulo. However, with the advent of the dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas and the fall of Júlio Prestes, she lost her position.
Trip to the USSR and social phase
1931-1932[13]: In 1931, Tarsila sold some paintings from her private collection to be able to travel to the Soviet Union with her new husband, the psychiatrist from Paraíba, Dr. Osório César, who would help her adapt to the different forms of political and social thought. The couple traveled to Moscow, Leningrad, Odessa, Constantinople, Belgrade and Berlin. Finally, Paris, where Tarsila became sensitive to the problems of the working class.
With no money, she worked as a construction worker, painting walls and doors. She soon managed to get the money she needed to return to Brazil.
1933: In Brazil, for participating in left-wing political meetings, Tarsila was considered suspicious and was arrested, accused of subversion. In 1933, with the painting “Operários”, the artist began a phase of more social themes, of which the canvases “Operários” and “Segunda Classe” are examples. In the mid-1930s, the writer Luiz Martins[14], twenty years younger than Tarsila, becomes her constant companion, first in paintings, then in her love life.
2nd Class; ost, 110x151, 1933
1934: She participated in the 1st. São Paulo Salon of Fine Arts, separated from Osório and married Luiz, with whom she lived until the 1950s.
1940-1950: From the 1940s onwards, Tarsila began to paint, returning to styles from previous phases. She exhibited at the 1st and 2nd São Paulo Biennials; in the first (1951) she won the “Acquisition Prize”. Retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo (MAM) in 1950, with presentation by Sérgio Milliet.
1960-1970: She is the subject of a special room at the 1963 São Paulo Biennial and, the following year, she is presented at the 32nd Venice Biennale.
In 1965, separated from Luís and living alone, she underwent spinal surgery, who felt a lot of pain, and a medical error left her paralyzed, remaining in a wheelchair until her last days.
In 1966, Tarsila lost her only daughter, Dulce, who died of a diabetic attack. During these difficult times, Tarsila declared, in an interview, her approach to spiritualism. From then on, she began to sell her paintings, donating part of the money she earned to an institution run by Chico Xavier, with whom she became friends. He visited her when he passed through São Paulo and they maintained a correspondence.
In 1969, curated by Aracy Amaral[15], her Retrospective “Tarsila, 50 years of painting” was presented to the public at MAM-RJ and MAC-SP.
Tarsila do Amaral, the artist-symbol of Brazilian modernism, died at the Hospital da Beneficência Portuguesa, in São Paulo, on January 17, 1973 due to depression. She was buried in the Consolação Cemetery wearing a white dress, as per her wish.
Representations in culture
Tarsila do Amaral has been portrayed as a character in cinema and television, played by Esther Góes in the film "Eternamente Pagu" (1987), Eliane Giardini in the miniseries "Um Só Coração" (2004) and "JK" (2006).
The artist was also the subject of the play Tarsila, written between November 2001 and May 2002 by Maria Adelaide Amaral. The play was performed in 2003 and published in book form in 2004. The title character was played by actress Esther Góes and the play also had Oswald de Andrade, Mário de Andrade and Anita Malfatti as characters.
Tarsila do Amaral was honored by the International Astronomical Union, which on November 20, 2008 named a crater on the planet Mercury after her "Amaral".
In 2008, the Tarsila do Amaral Catalogue Raisonné was released, a complete cataloguing of the artist's works in three volumes, produced by “Base Projetos Culturais”, sponsored by Petrobras, in partnership with the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, the State Secretariat of Culture and the Government of the State of São Paulo.
Interviews
Magazine Veja (02/23/1972) - Leo Gilson Ribeiro
Veja: You were in Europe during the Week. Even so, you are considered one of its main figures. Why?
Tarsila: Even though I was in Europe, I think I participated in the Week of 22 because of the letter that Anita Malfatti sent me, telling me everything, with all the details. Now I don't even know where that letter ended up. I was amazed by what she told me and by Monteiro Lobato's rudeness when he spoke about her, without understanding anything, very reactionary, because imagine that he considered himself a painter, Monteiro Lobato, you know? I was very amazed: what could this thing be? Anita was rightly hurt, Monteiro Lobato spoke of her paintings as if they were made by a donkey with a paintbrush tied to its tail and as the flies tormented the donkey he would make those brushstrokes like that on the canvas, right?
See: But the Week…
Tarsila: On the eve of going to Europe I rented my studio to a German professor, Professor Elpons, the only Impressionist who was in Brazil. He was the only one who gave me an experience of Impressionist paintings because nothing reached Brazil, only through Professor Pedro Alexandrino, who spent twenty years in Paris and visited a lot, those great painters, all of whom he knew. Many people said: it's a waste of time to go work in Pedro Alexandrino's studio because he's old-fashioned; but he was prepared, thinking about it, it wasn't a waste of time.
See: How did you discover your talent?
Tarsila: I started working (in São Paulo) under the direction of Pedro Alexandrino and it didn't hurt me at all to see that it was an old, academic thing, there was that old method of copying with a fusain to exercise the hand, I even did the head of a black man, he wanted me to have a very steady hand and then he gave me that very large piece of paper to work with, right? He would explain everything to me, to make lines without a ruler, without anything. I started with drawing, I wasn't a colorist at first, I also made plaster copies, with shading, anatomical things that I had to copy, to know well. He worked at the Lyceum of Arts and Crafts and brought those models and it was very good because the person learned anatomy and knew the proportions, right?
See: Was São Paulo very provincial in the arts?
Tarsila: Oh, it was, the general taste was for landscapes that were exactly like life, it was the realm of still life too, the flashes of metal copied on canvas, so real! That wasn't harmful to me, it was a preparatory phase. When I arrived in Europe I went straight to the Académie Julien, a nude academy, in a big