O The book Chronicles and other writings of Tarsila do Amaral, by Laura Taddei Brandini (research and organization), does more than bring together the painter's entire written production. The work, in its almost 750 pages, brings to light Tarsila's reflections and her interest in bringing newspaper readers closer to a very remote horizon in Brazil in the first half of the XNUMXth century: that of the world of arts. In the chronicles, the author of Abaporu pursues this kind of didactic mission through biographies of painters and artists, references to avant-garde movements and detailed descriptions of the Parisian scene. Tarsila also proves to be a great supporter of emerging (and established) talents. As a bonus, the volume recently released by Editora da Unicamp brings to light an unpublished manuscript, three poems, a short story and dozens of chronicles never published in book form.

Researcher Laura Taddei Brandini was responsible for prospecting and bringing together the documentary mass. The undertaking, which took ten years of research, is divided by the author into three phases. The first began in 1997, when Laura, then studying her second year of Literature at USP, decided to study Tarsila's chronicles. The work took as a reference the studies carried out by specialist Aracy Amaral. That was when Laura's consultations in public archives began. The analysis of this material resulted in a master's thesis, which she considered the second stage of the journey.

In the last phase, the author focused on editing the book. “The preparation offered me the opportunity to focus on both her cultural references, anchored mainly in the French 19th century, and Tarsila’s forays into literature, allowing me to discover an author attentive to both expressiveness and literary techniques”, observes Laura during the presentation of the work. In the interview that follows, she talks about the importance of bringing together all the writings of the painter, a fundamental figure in the Brazilian modernist movement. “The book will certainly open up several fronts of research.”

Unicamp newspaper –Tarsila mentions, in a large part of her chronicles, avant-garde manifestations – and artists –, emphasizing movements originating in France. To what extent, in her opinion, was she influenced by these movements?

Laura Taddei Brandini – Tarsila spent an important part of her formative period in Paris, where she came into contact mainly with cubist painters. In Brazil, until before, during and shortly after the Week of 22, the movement associated with modern art was eminently cubism. Tarsila left for France to find out what cubism was. Other artistic movements, at that time, did not have the same dimension and importance.

I think it was important because, even in the 1930s, more than 10 years after Modernism, in 1936, when Tarsila began her activities in newspapers, the Parisian avant-garde movements were not yet well known in Brazil, even though, in Europe itself, , some of these experiences, including impressionism, cubism and expressionism, were already to a certain extent outdated.

It is important to remember that when Tarsila, in the 1930s, began her activity in the press writing about Picasso and cubism, it was precisely to publicize, to newspaper readers in São Paulo and Rio, what this movement had been, which was not yet clear – nor widespread – to the Brazilian public.

JU – You could say that it fulfilled a didactic function.

Laura – One of the aspects that must be highlighted in Tarsila's set of chronicles is precisely the fulfillment of this didactic function. There was a constant concern on Tarsila's part to teach her reader. It was a role also performed by other Brazilian intellectuals, especially between the 1930s and 1950s. Another example is Sérgio Milliet.

JU – What are the greatest contributions brought by the collection of chronicles and other writings to the understanding of Tarsila’s work?

Laura – In addition to bringing together many unpublished chronicles, the work completes some unknown aspects of Tarsila's work. Everyone knows Tarsila as a painter, but few know the importance and scope of her work as an author of chronicles. It is important to highlight that the chronicles do not privilege the visual – she does not try to do, in the written text, what she did with painting. Although they are not advanced chronicles in their aesthetic dimension, the writings reveal the artist's reflections on the arts.

The texts make it clear that Tarsila was not simply an artist who painted her canvases. She reflected, read a lot about painting and various subjects and had a lot to say about the arts. This reflective side of Tarsila was never well known.

JU – Do the writings give clues about the ideas of Modernism?

Laura – In the beginning, from 1917 to 1922 – until the 1930s, in fact – which we call the heroic phase, Modernism was really a movement that aimed to seek a national art. Artists and intellectuals were engaged in the search for a language that was modern and could deal with Brazilian themes, inserting Brazilian art into the avant-garde European tradition.

From the 1930s onwards, which is when the production of Tarsila's chronicles began, this was no longer the objective – in a certain way, it had already been achieved in the previous decade. Intellectuals and artists turn more to Brazil and are less concerned with European tradition. The concern with the insertion of Brazilian art into the European tradition had been left behind.

They seek to deal more directly with the Brazilian people. We have, for example, less aesthetic research from the 1930s onwards than in the immediately preceding period. In this context, there was a great interest in teaching and disseminating things related to culture. Tarsila's writings are part of this movement. It shows the public aesthetic issues previously unknown to the common newspaper reader. All of this was part of the second moment of the modernists’ ideology.

JU – What about the split in the modernist group?

Laura – If on the one hand Tarsila is very personal in her chronicles, especially those in which she talks about her memories in Paris, on the other hand, issues involving direct friends are far from her writings, with the exception of Mário de Andrade, to whom she publicly declares her friendship. There are also texts praising Portinari, Lasar Segall and several other artists. Regarding Oswald de Andrade, to whom she was married, there is no personal line that makes reference to their relationship – the mentions are to the poet-leader of the Pau-Brasil Movement, of the Anthropophagic Movement. His intimacy in the sense of his emotional relationships, as a wife or girlfriend, is not present in the chronicles. I don't think it was even the most appropriate place.

JU – How did this “social” turn appear in your text?

Laura – This social bias, in Tarsila's work, it is worth highlighting, did not lean heavily towards political engagement and the search for better living conditions for the population. And this type of question also has no place in the chronicles. I even expected some stronger positions from her. However, we cannot ignore the fact that a large part of this production, which begins in 1934 and ends in 1956, was written under the Estado Novo [1936-1945]. During this period, there was not much space in the newspapers for social and class demands. Tarsila prefers to stick to aesthetic and artistic aspects. This has to do with both the historical moment in which she wrote and her own personal interests.

JU – In this context, what were Tarsila’s relations with the different instances of power?

Laura – Tarsila held a position in the state government, when she worked on cataloging works at the State Pinacoteca. However, with the Revolution of 30, she lost her position. Since then, her relationship with power has been very limited. At least, she does not express anything in the chronicles and correspondence. Tarsila remains apart from all this, avoiding raising political questions.

It is interesting to note, however, that she mentions Minister Gustavo Capanema, holder of the Education and Public Health portfolio at the time [1934-1945]. In Tarsila's eyes, Capanema worked for the development of the artistic environment in São Paulo and the country; Sometimes, the minister even financed trips for artists from São Paulo to international exhibitions taking place in Rio. Tarsila mentions these experiences in a very complimentary way.

JU – Tarsila intended to write a memory book, the project of which was never completed. To what extent can the chronicles be seen as an outline of this project?

Laura – In some of the manuscripts and in a text published in a magazine, Tarsila says verbatim that she would like to write a memoir based on her memories. She even mentions that books of this genre were in fashion. I see the manuscripts in which she expresses her intentions as first versions of these memories. There, she is already making reference to Parisian stories, telling them in a very free way. In the chronicles, she separates, by artists, such memories. In fact, memories of her are directly associated with the people who normally give the title to the chronicles.

JU – Books by Mário de Andrade, Jorge de Lima, Paulo Bomfim and Luís Martins, among other authors, are in his chronicles. How can this transition between the artist and writers be seen? Did Tarsila have any aspirations in the field of literature?

Laura – Tarsila lived with a doubt at the beginning of her career in 1917: she hesitated between writing poems, being a pianist and pursuing a career as a painter. His Parnassian poems are precisely from this period. And she chose the path of painting. We do not have records of other texts in her archives. What she produced, with literary objectives, in a finished text, are the short story and some of the poems, which were published in newspapers. She had no literary aspirations, although she socialized with poets and writers.

Furthermore, Tarsila had a clear idea that one of the functions of those who write in a newspaper – although she was not a journalist – in addition to the didactic function, was the importance of feeding the artistic and literary environment through her tool, which was at that time the writing. She highlighted works by new artists because she believed this was absolutely necessary. Even as a painter, even though her artistic production in the 1930s and 40s was not as aesthetically important at the time as that of the 1920s, she never stopped participating in painters' associations. She makes it clear in her texts that it was always necessary to talk about art.

JU – Tarsila frequently addresses works by new artists, as well as already established ones, especially in the 1930s and 1940s, a period of great transformation in the world of plastic arts. What was your biggest contribution in this context?

Laura – As I said in the previous answer, she tried to feed this artistic environment. Due to her experience in Paris in the 20s, she was convinced that this should be transposed to Brazil. When comparing, for example, the artistic circles of Brazil and Europe, she showed how in São Paulo things were limited, incipient – ​​there were no exhibition rooms, in short, there was a lack of cultural equipment. Her most important role would not be as an art critic or as a discoverer of new talents. That was not her intention. The importance of the role she played was precisely that of fueling the debate about art.

JU – Including in her defense of Portinari?

Laura – The issue involving Portinari mobilized the entire intellectual community of the time. I think it's very important that she took a stand. Although Tarsila's work was not as well known to the general public and did not have market value as it does today, she was highly respected in the artistic world as one of the great introducers of Cubism in Brazil.

She threw her weight behind Portinari, who had been heavily criticized for being considered an “official” painter of the Vargas dictatorship. She tried to show that it was necessary to dissociate the political issue from the aesthetic issue. Tarsila highlights, all the time, the aesthetic importance of Portinari's work. She asks, even if implicitly, that Portinari be judged by his work and not by his political convictions.

JU – Tarsila did not fail to spare art critics, demanding professionalism and knowledge. What reading can be made of this charge?

Laura – Tarsila sees the critic essentially as guiding the public. She defends the idea that the critic knows in depth the subject he is going to talk about. In her opinion, he should not only know the history of art, but he should know the artistic procedures and the painter's day-to-day life. Ultimately, Tarsila gave a similar dimension to practical and theoretical knowledge. In Brazil at the time, many of the painters did not have much theoretical knowledge, mainly due to the lack of specific schools – there was only the National School of Fine Arts, in Rio, or, in the case of São Paulo, the Liceu de Artes e Ofícios. The painter had to train himself.

Therefore, Tarsila demands, in her chronicles, a professionalism that was very difficult to obtain at that time. There, again, she is projecting her experience of Paris, where, of course, there was already a whole structure that enabled training for artists and, consequently, for critics.

JU – There is also a concern in highlighting the role of women, artists or not. What was Tarsila’s importance in this context?

Laura – Tarsila, since she married her cousin and decided to divorce him in the late 1910s, was already a pioneer. In fact there was no divorce – she got an annulment of the marriage. For this reason, she managed to marry Oswald de Andrade in 1926. Therefore, from the beginning of her artistic career to the positions adopted in the chronicles, Tarsila lets this pioneering spirit shine through. She truly believed that women had their rights and could not do everything men told them to. She never had a submissive posture, so common among women in the first half of the XNUMXth century.

JU – You found an unpublished manuscript in which Tarsila writes in a tone that ranges from confessional to fragmented, very different from that adopted in the chronicles. What analysis do you make of it?

Laura – This is an important manuscript. I kept the original writing in the transcription. I have the impression that it sounds like some kind of experimentation by Tarsila. It was made in 1935, the year in which she was in a period after the so-called social phase of her work, which would be, theoretically, for many critics, Tarsila's last “important” phase – although I don't agree with that. The time in which the manuscript was written was, therefore, a transitional one.

On the other hand, this text is the only one in which there is a search for the transposition of his pictorial language, his painting style, into the written text. This transposition was not developed in later periods. Tarsila would later adopt the path of chronicles, much more focused on publicity. Therefore, in the chronicles, the language is clearer, much less metaphorical than that used in the manuscript. Tarsila opts for a path, let's say, much more traditional, suited to newspaper language.

I think the manuscript is symbolic of the movement made by the great Brazilian modernist artists: it shows the search for certain aesthetic effects that did not continue in the 30s. At a certain point, they left aside the aesthetic search of the 20s, to dedicate themselves to form the Brazilian public.

JU – To what extent does the manuscript dialogue with the short story – also published – and with the chronicles?

Laura – I have two hypotheses regarding the manuscript. I don't have a clear answer as to its purpose. At no point in my research, in any source, did I find clues that could direct the answer to just one path. On the one hand, it seems to me, it is a very pictorial exercise of observation linked to the themes of art made by Tarsila in the 1920s, especially Pau-Brasil, and in the manuscript she cuts images that are easily located in her work.

The other path is that of the literary text that is more worked on from an aesthetic point of view, especially when we think about alliteration. The manuscript is included among notes for the creation of paintings and, perhaps, for a text with literary intentions, which was in the form of notes.

I see no relationship between the manuscript and the story, which was written in 1950. What I find interesting about the story is that it was, in my reading, a kind of result of some narrative exercises that she had already practiced in the chronicles previously.

WHO IS IT

Laura Taddei Brandini graduated in literature, with minors in French and Portuguese, at the University of São Paulo. At the same university, she defended her master's thesis, in which she studied the French marks in the chronicles of Tarsila do Amaral. In 2007, she obtained a Diplôme d'Études Approfondies (DEA) in literature and aesthetics from the University of Geneva, where she defended a dissertation on the Critical diary by Sergio Milliet. He is interested in studies in comparative literature, with an emphasis on cultural relations between Brazil and France.

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Chronicles and other writings by Tarsila do Amaral

Author: Laura Taddei Brandini (research and organization)

Unicamp Publisher

pages: 752

Price: R$72,00