Style and Subjects
Di Cavalcanti was obviously obsessed with the female body, since very many representations are to be found within the works he produced. The street scenes depicted by Cavalcanti are cheerful, characterized by a palette of bright colors and the depictions of everyday life in a normal, non-romanticized way. They evoke no strong political undercurrent, as do the works of such Mexican muralists of the 1930s and 1940s as Diego Rivera and David Siqueiros. The works produced by these artists were part of the revolutionary movement in opposition of the new revolutionary government who came to power in Mexico. Di Cavalcanti on the other hand refrained from overt political representations, although he himself was in a pursuit of perfecting a pure Brazilian art which had a clear break with European influences.
He tried through the creation of the Semana de Arte in 1922 and the Bienals in 1951 and 1953 to push for a true Brazilian art which was to be seen as separated from European stylistic influences. This was a dream and philosophy which can be seen as an ideal for Di Cavalcanti which was never found as one can see stylistic influences from the Italian Renaissance, Muralism, and the European Modernists.
Read more about this topic: Emiliano Di Cavalcanti
Famous quotes containing the words style and, style and/or subjects:
“I am so tired of taking to others
translating my life for the deaf, the blind,
the “I really want to know what your life is like without giving up any of my privileges
to live it” white women
the “I want to live my white life with Third World women’s style and keep my skin
class privileges” dykes”
—Lorraine Bethel, African American lesbian feminist poet. “What Chou Mean We, White Girl?” Lines 49-54 (1979)
“Style is the man himself.
[Le style c’est l’homme même.]”
—Leclerc, George-Louis Buffon, Comte De (1707–1788)
“... when you make it a moral necessity for the young to dabble in all the subjects that the books on the top shelf are written about, you kill two very large birds with one stone: you satisfy precious curiosities, and you make them believe that they know as much about life as people who really know something. If college boys are solemnly advised to listen to lectures on prostitution, they will listen; and who is to blame if some time, in a less moral moment, they profit by their information?”
—Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)