REVERBERATIONS OF SEMANA DE 1922

DI CAVALCANTI “BEFORE EVERYTHING” A TIMELESS PAINTER

Abstract

A century after the so controversial and emblematic Semana de Arte Moderna in 1922, the work of the artist Di Cavalcanti is particularly important as his pictorial investigation, committed to a new plastic research, allied to other Brazilian cultural traditions, brought into discussion the great intellectual debate about a national project. Considering the “Semana de 22” in the context of a broad and complex process of cultural transformation that was taking place in the vast Brazilian territory, which cannot be limited exclusively to an eminently urban phenomenon, directly connected to the industrial growth, the massive migration of foreigners and to the urbanization that characterized the city of São Paulo in the 1920s, Di Cavalcanti can be understood as a central figure to reflect on the reverberations of this modern phenomenon in the following decades and even on the implications and critical reinterpretations that we undertook after a hundred years of its occurrence.