{"id":1896,"date":"2025-03-17T12:15:38","date_gmt":"2025-03-17T12:15:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/03\/17\/exhibition-review-brasil-brasil-the-birth-of-modernism-in-london\/"},"modified":"2025-03-17T12:15:43","modified_gmt":"2025-03-17T12:15:43","slug":"exhibition-review-brasil-brasil-the-birth-of-modernism-in-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/03\/17\/exhibition-review-brasil-brasil-the-birth-of-modernism-in-london\/","title":{"rendered":"Exhibition Review: \u201cBrasil! Brasil! The Birth of Modernism\u201d in London"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
<\/a>
Tarsila do Amaral, Lake<\/em>, 1928. Photo by Jaime Acioli, copyright Tarsila do Amaral<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Brazilian Modernism in art was born out of nationalistic pride. Isolated from contemporary international creative developments until the early 1910s, Brazilian art traditionally revolved around religious iconography, portraiture and landscapes. Brazilian art academies were fiercely protectionist, viewing any new international art movement as radical and, therefore, at odds with their country\u2019s traditions. Plus, Brazil was experiencing an economic boom orchestrated by wealthy industrialists, and the national exhibitions the nouveau riche funded reflected their conservative tastes. Brazilian Modernism propelled the country\u2019s national artistic identity into the new century, and \u201cBrasil! Brasil! The Birth of Modernism,\u201d a group exhibition at London\u2019s Royal Academy, takes a lingering look at the artists who brought a freer, more contemporary sense of self-identity to the country\u2019s art legacy.<\/p>\n

\n<\/section>\n

Modernism in painting had been bubbling in Europe from the 1860s as art moved away from formal, story-telling tropes towards work that explored how paint could be more expressive and expansive. By the 1910s, Paris and Berlin were hotbeds of Modernism as Picasso, Braque, Kirchner and others smashed through painterly boundaries. Born in S\u00e3o Paulo in 1889, Brazilian artist Anita Malfatti<\/a>\u2019s 1912 visit to Europe blew her mind. Ending up in Berlin, she immersed herself in the new art ideas and, when she returned to Brazil, blended them into her paintings. Malfatti became a member of Grupo dos Cinco<\/i>, a collective of artists and writers working towards shaking off old-school ideas that included fellow painter Tarsila do Amaral<\/a>. The Grupo dos Cinco<\/i> were the first Brazilian Modernists, and Malfatti and do Amaral are key figures among the ten artists in the Academy\u2019s show.<\/p>\n

\"Fl\u00e1vio\"Fl\u00e1vio<\/a>
Anita Malfatti, Portrait of Oswald<\/em>, 1925. Photo by Jaime Acioli, copyright Anita Malfatti<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Brazil\u2019s Modernist timeline is a long one. Starting in earnest in the early twentieth century, it\u2019s generally agreed that the movement petered out at the start of the 1970s, and the Academy\u2019s exhibition succeeds in illustrating how Brazilian Modernist art became looser and more colorful as time passed. Tarsila do Amaral\u2019s artworks show this flowering, and her Lake<\/i> painting from 1928 is a glorious celebration of nature that\u2019s at odds with her introspective portrait work\u2014like the painting of poet and Grupo dos Cinco<\/i> member Oswald de Andrade<\/a>\u2014from six years before.<\/p>\n

Anita Malfatti also painted Oswald de Andrade, and her rendering shows how the Brazilian Modernists were embracing fresh takes on paint manipulation. Malfatti\u2019s Oswald is on the move, traversing the canvas in front of an energetic background of intersecting planes of color. Similarly, Fla\u0301vio de Carvalho used portraiture to push his practice forward. His portrait of Ma\u0301rio de Andrade (another Grupo dos Cinco<\/i> poet and stalwart) from 1939 is a fuzzy exercise in cutting loose with a paintbrush. Fl\u00e1vio de Carvalho was a wild card. Starting out as an architect and engineer, his artistic excursions included Experience N. 2<\/i>, Brazil\u2019s first act of performance art in which he walked the opposite way of a religious procession (very frowned upon), flirting with women as he wended through the crowd (even worse).<\/p>\n

\"An\"An<\/a>
Fla\u0301vio de Carvalho, Ma\u0301rio de Andrade<\/em>, 1939. Photo by Luiz Aureliano, copyright Fla\u0301vio de Carvalho<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Lasar Segall<\/a> and Vicente do Rego Monteiro<\/a> were contemporaries of Malfatti and do Amaral. Born in Lithuania in 1891 and educated in Germany, Segall moved to S\u00e3o Paulo in 1912, bringing his experience of European Expressionism with him. In Banana Plantation<\/i>, painted in 1927, Segall acknowledges the presence of African culture brought to Brazil following the trafficking of slaves from Africa to the country by Portuguese colonists. A plantation worker stares stoically from the canvas, seemingly close to drowning in the banana plants around him. Vicente do Rego Monteiro exhibited alongside Segall and Malfatti in the 1920s, and his roundly painted human figures\u2014like Archer<\/i> from 1925\u2014recall the curving forms of British Modernists Henry Moore<\/a> and Barbara Hepworth<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Working during the Second World War, Candido Portinari<\/a>\u2019s output had its basis in the gulf between the rich and the poor in Brazil. He used drawings and paintings of scarecrows to convey the plight of his country\u2019s impoverished people, and his 1940 painting The Scarecrow<\/i> is of a young girl in ragged clothes. In contrast, Alfredo Volpi<\/a> reduced his paintings down to simple, geometric forms. His Untitled<\/i> piece from 1950 is a mixture of willful naivety and trompe l\u2019oeil<\/i> as its triangles appear to vibrate and shudder against their blue grounding. Geraldo de Barros<\/a> was also intrigued by geometry and the trajectory of shapes, and the title of his Arrangement of Three Similar Shapes within a Circle<\/i> artwork tells it like it is: a pinwheeling ice-cream swirl of flat color.<\/p>\n

\"An\"An<\/a>
Geraldo de Barros, Arrangement of Three Similar Shapes within a Circle<\/em>, 1953. Photo: Gustavo Scatena\/Imagem Paulista, , copyright Geraldo de Barros<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Djanira da Motta e Silva<\/a> is the third female artist in the survey. Known simply as Djanira, her Three Orishas<\/i> painting from 1966 is a showstopper. Brazilian Modernism was established as a formidable force by the 1960s, and Djanira has spent time in New York, where she hung out with Marc Chagall<\/a> and Joan Mir\u00f3. As with Segall, she represented the influence of African culture on her country, and her Three Orishas<\/i> painting shows a trio of orishas<\/i>, or West African goddesses, looming imperiously in front of a pair of drummers. Rubem Valentim<\/a> also found inspiration in the orisha<\/i> myths. The only artist showcased here who worked in three\u2014as well as two\u2014dimensions, Valentim\u2019s orishas<\/i> are unrecognizably cubic in his oil paintings and totem-like in his wooden cut-outs and carvings. Made in 1980, Emblematic Sacral Alter Set \u2013 E59 <\/i>is one of a long series of Valentim sculptures that he saw as holy tributes to the African deities.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\"A\"A<\/a>
Djanira, Three Orishas<\/em>, 1966. Photo: Simon Coates for Observer<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In all, \u201cBrasil! Brasil!\u201d is a steady show but there\u2019s a staid quality to its staging. In 2022, the Royal Academy held a William Kentridge<\/a> retrospective, and the whole deal was a spell-binding treat. Lighting bounced from intense to subtle as the exhibition unfolded, and Kentridge\u2019s creations were presented in a kind of well-managed chaos. There\u2019s none of that playfulness or chaos here, which is a shame given the vibrancy and dynamism of the artwork on show.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/b>Brasil! Brasil! The Birth of Modernism<\/b><\/a>\u201d is at the Royal Academy in London through April 21, 2025. Advance booking is recommended.<\/b><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"The<\/p><\/div>\n