This essay, written by Manuel Bandeira, is an assessment of the “Salão de 31” exhibition which also had been disparagingly tainted as the “Salão dos Tenentes” by another journalist, parodying the then Lieutenant Getúlio Vargas whom had headed the 1930 Revolution. Bandeira, besides naming his preference of modern artists, rejected any sort of the supposedly “shocking” literary or artistic ideas produced by that generation. He praises the artists from São Paulo participating in the exhibition, as the author attributed the city the role of precursor at the epicenter of Brazilian modernism. He exemplifies this by pointing to the work by Anita Malfatti, who was a juror of the event. Bandeira’s essay, however, revolves around a very critical point, the fact of whether or not the tenure of architect Lucio Costa, the director of the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes, will be secured or not, due to the welcoming radical nature of his reforms in the educational planning, curricula, and teaching of art in the country.

Without a doubt, Manuel Bandeira (1886­–1968) is one of the main modern writers and poets of Brazil. Two of his poems, Evocação de Recife and Vou-me embora pra Passárgada, are among the most popularly known and referenced. Toward the end of the 1920s and early 1930s, he was known as an ardent defender of the “modernist” cause against a highly-politicized core group that was hostile to any sort of artistic experimentation. With that in mind, in 1931 Bandeira supported the innovative academic management of architect Lucio Costa at the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes, and consequently to the radical changes that implied the drastic reform in the teaching of art in the country.

The so-called Salão de 31 exhibition (38th Exposição de Belas Artes), carried out and organized by the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes (Rio de Janeiro, 1931) during the administration of Lucio Costa, marked an unquestionable transformation in Brazilian art, in its attempt to link modern art to the teaching of art and its dissemination within these conservative institutions.  

[For further reading, please refer to the ICAA digital archive and the following texts by the author: “Belas Artes” (doc. no. 1075449); “O Brasil que insiste em pintar” (doc. no. 1075573); “Um grande artista pernambucano: Manoel Bandeira, o desenhista” (doc. no. 1110818); “Retratos de meus pintores” (doc. no. 1111005); “A revolução e as Belas Artes” (doc. no. 1110996); and “Tarsila antropófaga” (doc. no. 781956)].