Manifesto Antropófago

Manifesto Antropófago

The Manifesto Antropófago is a 1928 cultural tract by Oswald de Andrade that proposed "cultural cannibalism" as a model for Brazilian identity, arguing for selective assimilation of foreign influences from figures such as Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Jean Cocteau, James Joyce, and T. S. Eliot while asserting indigenous agency akin to practices in Tupinambá encounters with French colonists. It situated itself within debates involving the Semana de Arte Moderna (1922), the Modern Art Week (São Paulo), and attendant circles including Mário de Andrade, Anita Malfatti, Heitor Villa-Lobos, and Oswald de Andrade's contemporaries in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. The manifesto entered transnational conversations alongside manifestos by Futurism, Surrealism, Dada, and the Vorticism movement, drawing attention from intellectuals such as Roger Caillois, Gilberto Freyre, Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, Raul Bopp, and later readers including Haroldo de Campos and Ariadne Joly.

Background and Context

The manifesto emerged amid tensions between São Paulo avant-garde circles linked to Semana de Arte Moderna (1922), provincial cultural elites in Salvador, metropolitan salons in Rio de Janeiro, and international expositions such as the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes. Influences ranged from European modernism exponents like André Breton, Guillaume Apollinaire, Blaise Cendrars, Fernand Léger, and Paul Valéry to Latin American counterparts including José Enrique Rodó, Rubén Darío, Vicente Huidobro, César Vallejo, and Leopoldo Lugones. The intellectual climate included debates in journals such as Klaxon, Verde, Estética, and Revista de Antropofagia networks, and legal, political, and cultural shifts linked to figures like Getúlio Vargas, Washington Luís, Artur Bernardes, and institutions such as the Academia Brasileira de Letras. Colonial histories referenced Pedro Álvares Cabral, Tomé de Sousa, Pedro II of Brazil, and indigenous encounters with Portuguese colonization, while Afro-Brazilian presences and syncretic practices invoked Candomblé, Afro-Brazilian culture, and leaders like Zumbi dos Palmares.

Publication and Authorship

The text was drafted and signed by Oswald de Andrade and circulated in São Paulo print culture, poetry readings, and pamphlets associated with journals such as Klaxon and exhibitions at venues like the Salão Revolucionário. Publication contexts included exchanges with poets and critics such as Mário de Andrade, Manuel Bandeira, Cecília Meireles, Raul Bopp, and Tarsila do Amaral, whose paintings like Abaporu became emblematic images cited alongside the manifesto. International correspondents and translators included Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz, Samuel Beckett, and scholars of Brazilian modernism like Haroldo de Campos, Décio Pignatari, Antonio Candido, and Roberto Schwarz. The manifesto circulated amid exhibitions featuring artists such as Anita Malfatti, Di Cavalcanti, Emiliano Di Cavalcanti, Flávio de Carvalho, and institutions including the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes and private salons patronized by families like the Matarazzo dynasty.

Key Themes and Concepts

The central metaphor—cannibalism—invoked historical episodes involving Tupinambá rituals, narratives found in accounts by Hans Staden, Jean de Léry, and colonial chroniclers like Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo and Pierre Belon. The manifesto proposed cultural digestion and transformation, juxtaposing European masters such as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt van Rijn, Édouard Manet, and Claude Monet with indigenous and African-derived aesthetics represented by practitioners in Bahia, Recife, Pernambuco, and Minas Gerais. It mobilized tropes from Brazilian modernism, anti-colonial critiques resonant with Frantz Fanon and Aimé Césaire, and language-poetic strategies akin to Marinetti and Hugo Ball. The work engaged with urban modernity in São Paulo, samba and popular music embodied by Noel Rosa, Pixinguinha, Cartola, and Dona Ivone Lara, as well as theatrical and cinematic forms shaped by Carlos Drummond de Andrade's circle, Nelson Pereira dos Santos, and studios such as Cinematográfica Vera Cruz.

Critical Reception and Influence

Reactions were polarized across reviewers like Mário de Andrade, Anita Malfatti, Clement Greenberg, Roger Bastide, and later critics including Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, Antonio Candido, Roberto Schwarz, and Haroldo de Campos. The manifesto influenced visual artists such as Tarsila do Amaral, Di Cavalcanti, Ismael Nery, Candido Portinari, and musicians like Heitor Villa-Lobos, Dorival Caymmi, and Luiz Gonzaga. Internationally it resonated with poets and theorists including Octavio Paz, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, José Lezama Lima, Alejo Carpentier, Nicolás Guillén, Pablo Neruda, Federico García Lorca, and critics such as Susan Sontag and Edward Said. Debates traced lines to postcolonial studies engaging scholars like Homi K. Bhabha, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and Stuart Hall, as well as theater practitioners in Antonin Artaud's orbit and performance theorists like Richard Schechner.

Legacy in Brazilian Modernism and Culture

The manifesto shaped later movements including Tropicalismo, with participants such as Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa, Os Mutantes, and Rita Lee, and informed literary experiments by Clarice Lispector, Jorge Amado, Graciliano Ramos, João Cabral de Melo Neto, and Lygia Clark's art practice. Institutional engagements occurred via the Fundação Getulio Vargas, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), and museums like the Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP), Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (MAM Rio), and Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo. The concept entered pedagogy in courses at Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp), Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), and influenced curatorial projects at Bienal de São Paulo, Bienal de Veneza, and festivals such as Festival de Paraty. Its echoes appear in contemporary debates involving scholars like Marilena Chauí, Nelson Werneck Sodré, Lilia Schwarcz, Joaquim Nabuco studies, and transnational dialogues at conferences hosted by The Modern Language Association and International Congress of Americanists.

Category:Brazilian literature