In his essay, critic Sérgio Milliet analyzes the painting taking place in São Paulo at the end of the 1930s, with an eye toward two exhibitions: the first, at the II Salão de Maio and the other, at the Salão do Sindicato dos Artistas Plásticos (both in 1938). The visual expressions are worthy of note, although he laments the lack of an art museum in the city, which has sidelined significant efforts by the painters of the current generation in Brazil.” Milliet praises collective works (those of the FAP or the Familia Artística Paulista, the Núcleo Bernadelli and other groups of the kind), those which “determine the best moments of the nation’s visual arts,” which in his judgment reflect the “state of the spirit” of the 20th century: “contradictory, painful and joyful, materialistic and mystical, insolent and constructive.”

For São Paulo writer Sérgio Milliet [da Costa e Silva] (1898–1966), an artwork was as much a real object as an ideal aspiration. Commenting on the artistic production of the 1930s, the author sees in his object the reflection of a generalized anarchy as well as a longing for “good,” and an ethical principle taking precedence over “beauty.”

Regarding the Salão de Maio, Milliet highlights the “social painting” of Lívio Abramo, Oswaldo Goeldi, and Lasar Segall; with reference to “ethnography and folklore,” he mentions the work of Alberto da Veiga Guignard, Orlando Teruz, Luiz Soares and Paulo Werneck; with regard to “religious spirit” he mentions Antonio Gomide; and finally, he identifies the paintings of Alfredo Volpi, Francisco Rebolo, Cícero Dias and the sculpture of Victor Brecheret as representing “the purest intention and achievement.”

Regarding the show of the Sindicato—an entity that did not represent any trend, but rather an organization of classes—Milliet highlights the works of Aldo Bonadei, Rebolo, Volpi, Waldemar da Costa, Clóvis Graciano and Joaquim Figueira, artists that worked “without any concessions whatsoever” and who [operated] in favor of “true art,” that “of the disinterested spirit.”