In this article, the writer Ronald de Carvalho questions the undeniable presence of foreign styles in the decorative art to be seen in the city of Rio de Janeiro, and suggests using ornamental motifs inspired by Brazilian flora and fauna and native clothing. His goal is to preserve the lessons of antiquity while adapting them to create a truly Brazilian style of art. He also recommends turning away from the coastal region and taking a more serious look at the interior of the country. He thus appreciates the stance taken by the painter Vicente do Rego Monteiro, who expressed his preference for creating art inspired by indigenous legends from the Amazon jungle, despite the fact that he had continued to apply the lessons he learned during his apprenticeship in Paris in the 1920s. Carvalho is aware that primitive civilizations are a source of great pride for the Brazilian painter, even though his work reflects the trends of modern artists whose paintings express the naïf qualities as well as the roughness and spontaneity of ancient art. Carvalho recognizes the theatrical potential of this artist’s works, and suggests that if they were designed as sets for dance performances their soundtrack would be the music of Heitor Villa-Lobos. In closing, Carvalho draws attention to the modern and documentary nature of Rego Monteiro’s work, two qualities that are ideally suited to the illustration of books by indigenous authors.      

This text is a good example of the relationship between Brazilian modernism and the European avant-garde (that was in a constant state of flux). It also sheds light on how Brazilian modernism incorporated indigenous motifs and folk legends. In 1921 the Brazilian poet and visual artist Vicente do Rego Monteiro (1899–1970) exhibited his work at the Teatro Trianon in Rio de Janeiro, with scenery designed expressly for a dance performance based on the work of the “Indianist” writer José de Alencar (1829–77). It is highly likely that this arrangement was inspired by the period that Monteiro, who was from Pernambuco, spent in Paris, where he attended dance performances and ballet productions whose sets were designed by French artists living in Paris (painters, wardrobe designers, set designers, and so on). There is no doubt that the work of Léon Bakst, Mikhail Larionov, and Natalia Goncharova, inspired by Russian folk traditions, had a profound and lasting impact on Rego Monteiro.   

The support provided by the Brazilian poet and politician Ronald de Carvalho (1893–1935) was a key factor in connecting Rego Monteiro to the circle of modernist artists in São Paulo and, obviously, was instrumental in orchestrating his participation in the Semana de Arte Moderna in 1922. Before he went back to Paris, Rego Monteiro left a number of radical paintings with Carvalho, who arranged for them to be shown at an exhibition in the city of São Paulo.