This critique is on the book Evolução Social da Pintura (1942), written by Luiz Martins,a book written on the conferences he held at the Biblioteca Municipal de São Paulo. Lourival Gomes Machado states that the author, Luiz Martins, understands that the art of his time is individualistic in nature and alien to social issues, thus escaping its established function. The detachment between art and society, he believes, is due to, among other reasons, the fact that art has now immersed itself into technical inquiries. Gomes Machado does not agree with this reasoning, believing that such function continues to be unaltered. He thinks that “modern” artists are still committed to the aforementioned social objectives, but are not focused on transmitting thought. For the critic, artists have always been preoccupied with technical inquiries, but the conquest of this unique field is only befitting to Modern Art. However, humankind, as the focal point is not abandoned. Furthermore, Gomes Machado upholds the production of pictorial still life art (the easy sales genre), while adding that this also entails technical research. He is of the opinion that the sale of this art genre provides the required means for artists to partake in other artistic inquiries.

The article “Pintura ainda tem função” [Painting still has a function] is a critique on the book Evolução Social da Pintura (1942) written by Luiz Martins. The critique brings to light certain particularities of Lourival Gomes Machado (1917–67) regarding the book and his open opposition to the author’s proposal, whom is also an art critic. It is one of the first known texts of the 1940’s to have been published by Gomes Machado in the São Paulo press. In this case, Gomes Machado radically opposed Martins’ writings, who felt that artists needed to engage more incisively with the social problems of their time. Contrary to this, Gomes Machado believed that modern artists fulfilled their social function the same way previous artists did.  Moreover, it was his opinion that the Visual Arts research was also especially valued, particularly as it was the art of the era that had generated its own field of action and from which societal aspects were discussed.

Lourival Gomes Machado was a journalist, a critic and an art historian. Around 1941, together with renowned intellectuals such as Antonio Candido, Paulo Emílio Salles Gomes, and Décio de Almeida Prado, he launched the magazine Clima (São Paulo), with the primary objective of promoting the renovation of critique in the areas of literature, cinema and theatre in Brazil. At that time, he was employed as the art critic for the newspaper Folha da Manhã, and as the editor of international politics at the O Estado de S. Paulo. He also became the curator at MAM/SP (Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, 1949–51), after the Belgian curator Léon Degand abandoned his post, apart from being the chief curator of the first and fifth international biennials of São Paulo. His most famous text, Barroco Mineiro (1969), is a selection of articles on that topic, previously started in 1953 in the book Teorias do Barroco.

[For additional reading and other texts by Gomes Machado, see in the ICAA digital archive: “Ainda não é amanhã” (doc. no. 1110722); “Apresentação” (doc. no. 1110834); “Bienal: significação do novo” (doc. no. 1110723); (untitled) [“Caberá abrirmos, nesse passo (…)”] (doc. no. 1110358); “A crítica sitiada, cá e lá” (doc. no. 1110725); “IV Bienal do Museu de Arte Moderna” (doc. no. 1232311); “Nem todo número é de ouro” (doc. no. 1110828); “Omnibus” (doc. no. 1110727); “O outro cavalo de Tróia” (doc. no. 1110724); “A presença dos concretistas” (doc. no. 1110728); “Rebolo” (doc. no. 1091476); “Retrato da Arte Moderna do Brasil” (doc. no. 1110720); “Sobre nós mesmos” (doc. no. 1110726); and “Teoria inviável” (doc. no. 1110729)].