Tarsila de Aguiar do Amaral (September 1st, 1886 — January 17th, 1973) was a Brazilian Modernist painter, drawer, and translator most well-known for creating Abaporu, one of the most recognizable and important paintings in Brazilian History. She is considered to be one of the most famous and important Brazilian and Latin-American artists from the 20th century across the world and one of the most important influences and consolidations of the first phase of Brazilian modernism, alongside Oswald de Andrade, Anita Malfatti, Mário de Andrade and Menotti del Pichia, who together were called "the group of five".
Inspired by the European Vanguards (such as cubism, surrealism, futurism, expressionism etc.), Tarsila and other modernist painters intended to use those artistic styles to represent Brazil's own cultural and historical perspectives, focusing on nationalism, valorization of Brazilian popular culture, regionalism and folklore, aesthetic freedom, and social criticism, standing against the rigorous aesthetic traditionalism from Europe that had previously influenced the national artistic landscape. Her works often have tropical and vibrant colors, sometimes relating to the Brazilian flag (green, yellow and blue), and irreverent and non-standard styles. She created more than 270 paintings, most of which can be divided into three phases:
- Pau-Brasil phase (1924 - 1928): Characterized by the use of strong, cheerful, and vibrant colors, portraying national themes, day-to-day activities, holidays, and landscapes. The Pau-Brasil movement, as argued by Oswald, defended that Brazilian art should stop being a product of European importation and start being a product of exportation, much like brazilwood (Pau-Brasil) was the first Brazilian product to be exported in the start of Portuguese colonization. Some of the most famous paintings of this phase are A Cuca ("The Cuca"), O Pescador ("The Fisherman"), O Mamoeiro ("The Papaya Tree") and A Negra ("The Black Woman").
- Anthropophagic phase (1928 - 1930): Inspired by the European Vanguards, it started after she created her most famous painting Abaporu in 1928, which inspired the Anthropophagic Movement — an artistic manifestation that intended to "digest" European styles and adapt them to Brazil's own cultural reality, including aesthetics related to Indigenous and African cultures. This phase maintained the vibrant colors and non-standard aesthetic, but it primarily focused on abstract themes rather than landscapes or daily activities, as it delved into Tarsila's dreams, childhood memories, and incorporated more surrealistic imagery. Besides the Abaporu, some of the most famous artworks of this age are O Ovo ("The Egg") and Antropofagia ("Anthropophagy").
- Social Painting Phase (1933): Focused on portraying day-to-day life and social themes of the country in a critical and politically engaged way, denoucing the adversities, inequality and struggles from Brazil's social context in the 1930's following The Great Depression, especially in São Paulo. They have a somewhat darker tone that Amaral's previous colorful and lively workpieces, using grayer and more somber colors. The most notorious paintings of this phase include Segunda Classe ("Second Class"), Costureiras ("Seamstresses") and Operários ("Factory Workers").
Despite being better known for her modernist paintings, Tarsila also made several realistic and more traditional works, such as Sagrado Coração de Jesus
(Sacred Heart of Jesus, 1904) and Autorretrato com lenço vermelho
◊ (Self-Portrait with Red Scarf, 1921).
Do Amaral's artworks:
Tropes in her other works:
- Cartoon Creature: When making A Cuca (The Cuca, a mythical child-eating witch from Brazilian Folklore), Tarsila described the painting to her daughter as "a weird animal in the middle of the woods, with a frog, an armadillo and another invented animal".
- Cast of Snowflakes: Operários◊ (Workers, 1933) shows several people of different ethnicities outside of a factory, each one with unique facial features in order to represent Brazil's racial diversity.
- Darker and Edgier: Tarsila's paintings in the Pau-Brasil era had vibrant and cheerful colors that evoked childhood, portraying natural landscapes and colorful sightings, but some of her posterior works in the 30's focusing on social themes present a much more somber tone, having darker, grayer and less intense colors, like Segunda Classe◊ (Second Class, 1933), and critically portraying the reality of many Brazilians in the context of industrialization and rural exodus. She continued to make cheerful paintings afterwards though, even with what it is called the "Neo Pau-Brasil" in the 50's.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Tarsila's first paintings, between 1904 and 1922, were drastically different from the style she is known for, with more traditional, realistic, and formal artworks. It was only in 1923, after the Modern Art Week of 1922 and her travels, that she adhered Modernism with A Negra◊ (The Black Woman) and adopted her instantly recognizable artstyle. That said, she never really stopped making traditional portraits, like Beatriz with the dog◊ in 1940 and Portrait of Luís Martins◊ by 1937.
- Holy Halo: Sagrado Coração de Jesus portrays Jesus Christ with a halo on His head.
- I'm a Humanitarian: While the word "Anthropophage" names some of her paintings, such as Anthropophagy and Abaporu (meaning "man who eats man" in tupi), the trope on itself wasn't actually present in the literal sense. The use of these themes relate to the Anthropophagic Movement, in which artists defended the symbolic digestion of European art styles and their adaptation to Brazilian reality, much like they saw Brazil as a melting pot of different cultures that should be represented.
- In Name Only: The central being in The Cuca doesn't have much resemblance to how the Cuca from Brazilian Folklore is sometimes described note .
- Slice of Life: Several of her paintings, such as The Fisherman, Hill of the Favela, Carnival in Madureira etc. depict mundane events from Brazil's day-to-day life from an idyllic point of view, especially in the countryside. This is emblematic of the Modernist period, as artists distanced themselves from the epic events shown in Romantic paintings in favor of valorizing more grounded scenes.
- Surrealism: Tarsila's Modernism was influenced by several European Vanguards, including this movement. This is most noticeable in the Anthropophagic Phase, which focused more on abstract themes.
