Anita Malfatti - Controversial Art

Controversial Art

Malfatti had her own solo exhibition, Exposição de Pintura Moderna in São Paulo, Brazil from December 12, 1917 to January 11, 1918. Despite the fact that Malfatti carefully chose her artworks so as not to offend, for example, she omitted her nudes from the exposition, her work was still highly criticized. In New York she had been heralded as another member of the avant-garde artists, but in Brazil her art was not recognized to be a positive contribution in the important search of nationalism and traditions within art. One of the reasons why Malfatti became such a scandal was because her art was displayed as a one-person show. Instead of having many different artists revealing their intentions of bringing Brazilian art into context of globally modernist innovations such as Post-Impressionism or Cubism to Brazil, Malfatti was seen as an individual who caused scandal to the carefully and rather conservatively minded Brazilians whose only desire was to continue the fin-du siecle romantic style. As Batista argues Malfatti's thought was something similar to, "I’m not the only person who paints in this style unfamiliar to you; out there, this is the new, current art many others are experimenting with" However, despite the fact that Malfatti was an artist riding the global wave of thought and style, in Brazil she was simply viewed as an alien artist with no hinge linking her art to the Brazilian culture. Therefore, Malfatti's internationalism only further estranged her from Brazilian's expectations of art and of her art in particular. Malfatti’s art was in no way romantic. “Her formal innovations, including Cubist planar distortions, a vibrant high-colour palate and forceful drawing, were deemed unintelligible.” However, Malfatti’s art was celebrated by critics like Oswald de Andrade who had been familiar with Marinetti’s futurist manifesto in Europe and translated that to Brazilian culture because her artwork reflected true freedom of subject and style. One of the huge factors of Brazilian modernism lay in the close association between the literary avant-garde to painting and sculpture. Lucie-Smith, in Latin American Art of the 20th Century, argues that this association prevented art from being created smoothly and progressively and furthermore provided artists with cultural, social and political responsibilities that the artists may not have previously been tied to. For example, Oswald de Andrade’s “Pau-Brazil Poetry Manifesto” argues for:

Synthesis Balance Finished bodywork Invention Surprise A new perspective A new scale Any natural effort in this direction will be good. Pau-Brazil Poetry

With literary movements propelling the artistic explosion which was to become Brazilian modernism, Malfatti was painting in a time of political and social need for a fresh and creative artistic license. The synthesis between Andrade and other painters such as Tarsila do Amaral and the rest of the Group of Five was enormously important in uplifting the older more conservative views of art and culture.

Yet another reason that Malfatti's exposition was viewed with such distaste lies in the fact that she was a woman. Malfatti's art was not seen in correlation to proper feminine etiquette of the era. She was criticized by critic Monteiro Lobato for having an inauthentic Brazilian spirit. Unfortunately, Lucie-Smith among other art historians argue that due to the negative responses aroused toward Malfatti's art, her style never evolved further than her paintings exhibited in her 1917 exhibition. “Her later paintings are a step backwards, naïve and cheerfully folkoristic." The Week of Modern Art in São Paulo, Brazil was created in respect to events in Europe such as Deauville, France which tended to celebrate futurism and progressive thought. Not only exhibiting art, the week included conferences, architectural exhibits, music and poetry readings. The point of the week was to celebrate the down to earth and free thinking styles of art that could propagate change and social movement toward a less pretentious and more open minded Brazilian mindset. Academic training was not stressed upon during the Week of Modern Art. In fact, there was an array of artistic styles exhibited, which also underlined the lack of direct organization of the exhibition. "Diverse directions were taken: from postimpressionism to half-baked cubism." Although cubism and art deco later became a huge part of the modernist movement, Malfatti's particular style was most influential in its initial impression to Brazil. She was a member of the Group of Five modern artists, but she is heralded more as the instigator of modernism rather than a propellant of the movement, as Tarsila do Amaral turned out to be. The artists in the Group of Five beyond Anita Malfatti were Tarsila do Amaral (1886–1973), Mário de Andrade (1893–1945), Oswald de Andrade (1890–1954) and Menotti Del Picchia (1892–1988). During the Week of Modern Art Anita Malfatti and Andrade organized classes for children in the hopes that stimulating children's interest in the spontaneity and creativity of art might help to further the modernist movement.

Malfatti's importance lies in the fact that she was the groundbreaking Brazilian painter, and furthermore an upper-class woman, who was exposed to global art’s tendencies and who was able to bring these tendencies back to her Brazilian roots. In her search for her own artistic identity and her influence influenced by Modernist movements in Europe and America, her paintings accurately reflected the transformative twentieth century ideals and although her art is never seen to transcend her initial breakthrough, that first impact was enough to impart a lasting legacy upon other Brazilian modernist painters as well as to herself.