Muralism in São Paulo: convergence of the arts between 1950 and 1960

• Grant number: 12/14806-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: December 01, 2012
• End date: August 31, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History
• Principal Investigator: Jorge Sidney Coli Junior
• Grantee: Patrícia Martins Santos Freitas
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 14/08064-0 - Muralism in America, BE.EP.DR

Abstract

Between the 1950s and 1960s, São Paulo experienced a big vertical growth, driven by heating the housing market and economic prosperity of the period. Inserted in the modernizing impulse created by the government of Juscelino Kubitschek is a remarkable number of buildings that express a certain idea of modernity. These works establish partnership between architects and artists. The latter created several panels made of glass wafer, ceramics, frescoes and tiles.The implementation of these panels mobilized to work together names like Oscar Niemeyer, Portinari, Clovis Graciano, Fulvio Pennacchi, Vilanova Artigas, Rino Levi, Roberto Burle Marx, Antônio Maluf, Bramante Buffoni, among others. The themes addressed in these works range from slogans alluding to identity and memory of Sao Paulo: pioneers, labor and industry, but they can also choose abstract forms, expressing a debate between figuration and abstraction, the plaintiff at the time.Within the context of modernism in São Paulo, these works allow the reflection of an aesthetic program linked to the idea of harmonization and convergence of art, referring to the aestheticization of everyday life and the concept of total art, notions thought since the nineteenth century, and revisited in the early twentieth century decades, sometimes with strong political overtones. It also establishes as a fundamental characteristic for the understanding of these productions, the placement of an education and updating of taste, expressing aesthetic convictions of several groups of artists and architects.