Almada Negreiros Research Articles

Almada Negreiros and the geometric canon

This paper presents a mathematical analysis of a series of geometrical abstract artworks by the Portuguese author Almada Negreiros (1893–1970), understood in the context of the author's search for a canon. After a brief description of Almada's work in the frame of twentieth-century visual arts, we examine the mathematical elements in three of his works: illustrations for a newspaper interview, two drawings from a collection called Language of the Square and his last visual work, the mural Começar. The analysis revealed that some of the author's geometrical constructions were mathematically exact whereas others were approximations. We used computer-based drawings, along with mathematical deductions to examine the constructions presented in the aforementioned works, which we believe to be the representative of Almada's geometric statements. Our findings show that, though limited by the self-taught nature of his endeavour, the mathematical content of these artworks is surprisingly rich. The paper is meant to be an introduction to Almada's work from a mathematical point of view, showing the importance of a comprehensive study of the mathematical elements in the author's body of work.

The cultural discourse of contemporary Portuguese Iberianism

Abstract In contemporary times, Iberianism has been one of the most important themes in the relationship between Portugal and Spain. But there are few words as ambiguous in the peninsular history and culture as the word ‘Iberianism’. Aside from traditional political or territorial Iberianism, and often in a critical reaction against it, there exists a less-known cultural, spiritual or civilizational Iberianism, striving for an approximation between the two countries and its peoples that excludes all kinds of state fusion and border suppression, and aims to strengthen the Iberian relationship through unity in diversity, differentiation with complementation, independence with alliance and neighbourhood with friendship. The aim of this article is to explore the cultural discourse of contemporary Portuguese Iberianism, drawing on the reflections produced on the subject by such authors as J. P. de Oliveira Martins, Teixeira de Pascoaes, Fernando Pessoa, António Sardinha, Almada Negreiros, José Saramago, Eduardo Lourenço, Natália Correia and Miguel Torga.

1943. Don Quijote sebastianizado. En un lugar de Europa, que el autor quiso poner Tristiânia

This article comments the work of the Portuguese playwright Carlos Selvagem, Dulcinea ou a ultima aventura de Dom Quixote , a Heroic Farce represented at the Teatro Nacional Dona Maria, in Lisbon, on January 1944, with settings by Almada Negreiros and music by Ernesto Halffter. From a comparative perspective, and regarding the study of the Quixote’s recreations, the text published in the book is analyzed, contextualizing, in both political and ideological aspects, the «sebastianization» of the Cervantes’ hero presented here, interpreting it’s development concerning the plot, and observing its relationship with Cervantes’ model.

Almada Negreiros, a Portuguese Futurist

In the beginning of the 1910’s, Jose de Almada Negreiros, together with the writers Fernando Pessoa and Mario de Sa-Carneiro and the young artists Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, Santa Rita Pintor, Eduardo Viana and Jose Pacheco, tried out daring and unusual formats of writing, drawing and public gestures that reflected Futurist predecessors and acted as a force of change in Portugal. Together, they set up the magazine Orpheu , which became the emblematic periodical of Portuguese Modernism. Almada distinguished himself with his Manifesto Anti-Dantas e por extenso , a polemical pamphlet directed against Julio Dantas and everyone who contributed to the cultural and artistic backwardness of the country, and with the poem-manifesto, A cena do ódio , written for the third issue of Orpheu , which was not published at the time. In the years 1915-17, Almada Negreiros became a propagandist-performer who adapted Marinetti’s technique of Words-in-Freedom ( parole in liberta ) and almost completely set aside his production as a fine artist. After the creation of a Lisbon Futurist Committee in 1917, Almada presented himself to the public in a first Futurist soiree. Shortly afterwards, the only issue of Portugal futurista appeared and was immediately seized by the police. In 1918, after the death of Santa Rita Pintor and Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, Almada’s enthusiasm for the avant-garde began to fade and Portuguese Futurism found an early end. In 1919, before leaving for Paris, Almada became involved in an aristocratic intellectual circle in Lisbon and devoted himself to the creation of ballets inspired by Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes.

Desígnios do Desenho no Contexto da Cultura Visual

Almada Negreiros, pintor português de meados do século XX, costumava dizer que não gostava de quem não soubesse desenhar-se. Desenhar aparece-nos como uma faculdade humana tão importante quanto falar desde a mais tenra idade. E, de fato todas as crianças desenham e desenham-se tanto na escola como fora dela.

Consensus and Debate in Salazar's Portugal: Visual and Literary Negotiations of the National Text, 1933-1948 (review)

Reviewed by: Consensus and Debate in Salazar's Portugal: Visual and Literary Negotiations of the National Text, 1933-1948 Silvia A. Oliveira Sapega, Ellen W. Consensus and Debate in Salazar's Portugal: Visual and Literary Negotiations of the National Text, 1933-1948. University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 2008. Pp. 160. ISBN 978-0-271-03410-2. Nearly four decades have passed since the fall of Oliveira Salazar's dictatorship that began in 1928 and ended in 1974. Given the current interest in the many facets of history making and memory building that occurred during Salazar's long reign and continued after his passing in 1968, Ellen W. Sapega's Consensus and Debate in Salazar's Portugal: Visual and Literary Negotiations of the National Text, 1933-1948 is essential reading. Consensus and Debate in Salazar's Portugal presents a well-documented and vivid portrait of how consensus building propaganda led to an official Salazarist culture, and explores the "middle course between open resistance and ready consent. . ." (3). Those interested in the fascistic shaping of national identities during the first half of the twentieth century, especially as it relates to Portuguese, African Lusophone, and Brazilian studies, will find Sapega's work invaluable. The opening chapter focuses on the actions of the Secretariat of Propaganda, created in 1933 for the manufacturing of Portuguese originality. Sapega analyzes the impact that visual constructs had on forming consensus at the national and international levels, and singles out two illustrative events. In 1938 a nostalgic competition was promoted to discover and recreate the most Portuguese village in Portugal. This national affair served to mobilize the media and center attention on the traditional values of religious and rural life, the central tenant of Salazar's agenda. The second event Sapega examines is the carefully designed and internationally publicized Exposition of the Portuguese World that took place in Lisbon in 1940, an event that was the crown of Salazar's apotheosis. Drawing on images and narratives that appeared in the press, Sapega reconstructs in virtual tour fashion, the experience of the visitor to the imperialistic exposition. She explores the aesthetic elaboration of these two events and documents Salazar's memory building mechanism by examining the strategies and processes used to create a national memory that was crystallized for its own and future generations. With the context of Salazar's designing of Portugalidade established, the remainder of her book is devoted to how three independent artists countered the Estado Novo's ideology by incorporating subtle elements of discord into their work. Having previously authored an admirable study of José de Almada Negreiro's narrative fiction in 1992, Ellen Sapega here scrutinizes Almada's use of modernist visual aesthetics in his assignments that were commissioned by the government. Through detailed analysis of the state sponsored stained-glass work for the Church of Our Lady of Fátima and the murals of the Rocha Do Conde De Óbidos and Alcântara maritime stations in Lisbon, Sapega persuasively describes how Almada Negreiros designed and imprinted "cracks in the façade" of the national text. These public projects would later prompt accusations of conflict-of-interest and make Almada Negreiros one of the most controversially esteemed Portuguese artists of the twentieth century. Sapega next turns to Irene Lisboa's literary works published in the 1940s to exemplify how creative writers resisted Salazar's patriarchal doctrine. Irene Lisboa's nearly overlooked importance in twentieth-century Portuguese literature and culture is revitalized as Sapega demonstrates how Lisboa effectively undermined the "God, Fatherland, and Family" slogan by including in her stories common men and women whose life circumstances contradict one or more elements of Salazar's national trinity. Lisboa rejected the melodramatic overtones of flowery official prose and opted instead for a minor tone and a more subtly inconspicuous fragmented narrative. Sapega then appropriately underscores her analysis of Irene Lisboa's texts by stating that Lisboa "implicitly reminds her readers that traditional literary forms can be just as oppressive as the laws that structure and govern the social body" (113). [End Page 714] Lastly, Cape Verdean writer Baltasar Lopes is introduced. His 1947 novel, Chiquinho, depicting Creole cultural practices, is established by Sapega as an important work...

ENGOMADEIRA, SALTIMBANCOS E QUADRADO AZUL: A NARRATIVA PLÁSTICA DE ALMADA NEGREIROS NO PRIMEIRO MODERNISMO PORTUGUÊS

This essay presents an analysis of three novels written by Almada Negreiros,one of the main participants of the review Orpheu, between 1915 and 1917: AEngomadeira, K4 O quadrado azul and Saltimbancos (contrastessimultaneous), which are experiments of plastic narratives where the suggestionof the pictorial subordinates the plot. We also comment the only novel writtenby this author after the years of the modernist effervescence, Nome de guerra,searching for reasons of this late option for the narrative conventionalism, andof this insistence in the message coming from an artist who became known bythe use of the image.

Human values and spiritual values: Traces of Prometheus in Portuguese literature and criticism

This paper follows the traces of Prometheus in several Portuguese poems and philosophical essays published in the first half of the twentieth century. The analysis shows how these texts, despite their varied discursive and ideological stance, significantly use the reference to Prometheus to stress the importance of spiritual values in the definition of humanness. Guerra Junqueiro’s poetic draft Prometeu Libertado [Prometheus Unbound] and Leonardo Coimbra’s philosophical narrative “Uma Fala de Espiritos” [“A Talk of Spirits”] recall the antithesis between the material world and the spiritual world represented by Prometheus and Christ, while depicting the future of humankind as a balanced reunion of both dimensions. Then, in the historical and political essay “Prometeu. Ensaio espiritual da Europa” [“Prometheus. Spiritual essay of Europe”], Almada Negreiros grants Prometheus a major spiritual significance in Western culture, and the suffering hero is also regarded as the symbol of human spiritual demands in the poem Canto de Prometeu [Prometheus’s Chant], by Joao de Barros.

Visiones de estereoscopio: Paradigma de hibridación en el arte y la narrativa de la vanguardia española

This book, written in Spanish, focuses on the literary and artistic works of such avant-garde figures as Ramon Gomez de la Serna, Benjamin Jarnes, Antonio de Obregon, Juan Chabas, Rosa Chacel, Claudio de la Torre, Almada Negreiros, Maruja Mallo, Mauricio Amster, Manuel Reinoso, Diego Rivera, and Angeles Santos y Victorio Macho. It identifies the attempt to integrate conflicting epistemological, ethical, and sociopolitical categories as the organizational principle driving the avant-garde novel and art. This principle manifests itself in the avant-garde on various levels: the theory of representation, the development of the protagonist, and the concept of history.

Mensagens: Portuguese Music in the 20th Century

These lines of Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935), the great poet of Portuguese modernism, may seem at first sight to invoke the principal element of fado, Portugal's national music: the element represented by that famously untranslatable word suadade, implying longing, nostalgia, homesickness … However, they hide far deeper resonances. Mensagen (Message), the poetic sequence from which they come, is a profound exploration of Portugal's history, a modern counterpart to Camoens's great 16th-century epic The Lusiads. It is connected to the nationalist Integralismo Lusitano movement, and to Sebastianism. Other poets, particularly Mario Sa-Carneiro (1890–1916), and plastic artists, notably Amadeo de Sousa Cardoso (1887–1918) and Jose de Almada Negreiros (1893–1970), similarly reflect the strength of these patriotic and mystical ideas in Portugal during the country's deepening social crisis in the early part of the century. But Pessoa, who famously split himself into several persons, each with their own name, style and poetic output, may also stand as a symbol of the different currents Portuguese composers have ridden in search of their national identity.