Critique by Sérgio Milliet of the manifesto recently released by grupo “ruptura” (1952) during the group’s inaugural show of geometric constructive art at the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo in December of that same year. Despite praising the participation of Geraldo de Barros and Waldemar Cordeiro, Milliet argues that the group’s proclamation is underdeveloped and unclear regarding their proposals, and that their text is literary, confusing and lacks examples. The critic requests explanations regarding the terms “hedonistic non-figuration” and “new artistic principles.” Later he states that “the poetic language” used in the document is inappropriate to the artistic goals that should be expressed with line, color, and volumes, not with words.

The text centers on the debate unleashed by the “Manifesto ruptura” (1952), through which the Brazilian concrete art trend took on national importance during the next two deacades. Milliet does not oppose the abstract trends in particular, but rather the scarcely didactic tone of the manifesto. As a critic, his principal concern is a work’s ability to communicate. With regard to abstraction, he is nonetheless convinced that its purely formal expression could ultimately compromise the work’s ability to communicate with the public.

Starting in the 1930s, Sérgio Milliet played an important role in the diffusion of modern art in Brazil, and in its expression in the artistic milieu of São Paulo. Milliet was a writer, sociologist, art critic and professor; in 1943 he served as director of the Biblioteca Municipal [public library] and created an arts section with an archive on modern art in Brazil. Beginning in 1938 he published regularly in the press, and founded and served as the first president of the ABCA (Associação Brasileira de Críticos de Arte) in 1949. When he wrote the present document, he held the post of director of the Museu de Arte Moderna in São Paulo.

[As complementary reading, see in the ICAA digital archive by Waldemar Cordeiro, co-authored with Lothar Charoux, Geraldo de Barros, Kazmer Féjer, Leopoldo Haar, Luís Sacilotto, and Anatol Wladyslaw, the manifesto “ruptura” (doc. no. 771349) and its manuscript (doc. no. 1232213)].