This is a critical and historical review of Concrete art, written by the poet and critic Ferreira Gullar, who sees the movement as an objective, critical response to the modern era and industrial society. Gullar makes comparisons between the ideas of Max Bill and the work of Piet Mondrian, and discusses the differences and similarities between the original teachings of the Bauhaus (in Weimar and Dessau) and the Hochschule für Gestaltung [Advanced School of Form] in Ulm, Germany. He claims that linking art and science has contributed to the decadence of Constructive art, which ultimately leads to the simple illustration of problems of perception. Gullar explains the basis of Gestalt theory and questions its relationship to Concrete art. He also includes in his essay a few of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophical remarks that are critical of that theoretical approach. According to Gullar, both painting and sculpture are forms of personal expression that allow artists to transcend their perceptive horizon. On the other hand, in his opinion, Neo-Concrete art is a reaction to the idea of art as merely a form of visual expression, especially in Brazil where form has become radicalized.  

This article is one of a series entitled "Etapas da Pintura Contemporánea" that was published between March 1959 and October 1960 in the Suplemento Dominical do Jornal do Brasil. In this collection of articles, the critic and poet [José Ribamar] Ferreira Gullar (b. 1930) discusses non-figurative geometric art from Cubism to Neo-Concrete art, in order to determine the latter’s historical roots. He therefore takes the essential step of reevaluating the international Constructivist movements he had previously written about in March 1959 in his “Manifesto Neoconcreto” [see the ICAA digital archive, doc. no. 1110328]. 

In “Tentativa de compreensão,” Gullar discusses the critiques of Concrete art he had previously outlined in his manifesto, dated March 22, 1959. In this article, he explains the seriousness of his theoretical reservations concerning Gestalt, and endorses the phenomenological ideas expressed by the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty as an obligatory referent to be used when challenging the development of Brazilian Concrete art.

The author subsequently published his weekly essays in a later collection with a different title: Etapas da arte contemporánea (Do cubismo à arte neoconcreta) (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Nobel, 1985). Among the essays that are relevant to this one, see “Cor e estrutura-cor” in which Gullar compares the chromatic experiments conducted by Hélio Oiticica and Aluísio Carvão with Lygia Clark’s works(doc. no. 1091219); see also another relevant essay by this same author, “Do quadro ao não-objeto,” in which he follows the evolution of Clark’s work from her Concrete works to her Neo-Concrete independence (doc. no. 1091272).