History

On 9 December, 1952, at the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo - MAM/SP [São Paulo Museum of Modern Art], the exhibition was inaugurated that marked the official beginning of Concrete Art in Brazil. Named 'Rupture', the show was conceived and organised by a group of seven artists, mostly of foreign origin, resident in São Paulo: the Poles Anatol Wladyslaw (1913 - 2004) and Leopoldo Haar (1910 - 1954), the Austrian Lothar Charoux (1912 - 1987), the Hungarian Féjer (1923 - 1989), Geraldo de Barros (1923 - 1998), Luiz Sacilotto (1924 - 2003), and the catalyst and official spokesman of the group, Waldemar Cordeiro (1925 - 1973). Cordeiro met Barros, Charoux and Sacilotto in 1947, at the show 19 Pintores [19 Painters], while all were still under the influence of the Expressionist movement. It was only in 1948, when Cordeiro returned to Brazil permanently, that the work of these artists shifted towards abstraction. Around this time, they met to discuss Abstract Art and philosophy, principally the theory of pure visibility of the German philosopher, Konrad Fiedler (1841 - 1895) and the concept of form invented by Gestalt psychology. Féjer and Leopoldo Haar, who had both received an artistic training in their countries of origin, had already been producing abstract paintings at least since 1946, and joined the group. The last to join in 1950 was Wladyslaw, a former pupil of Flexor (1907 - 1971).

As Cordeiro stated in 1953, in reply to an article by the art critic Sérgio Milliet (1898 - 1966), the Ruptura group "is far from representing the entire abstract and concrete art movement in São Paulo, whose ranks today have many members".¹ In the light of this, what differentiated them from the other artists? It is known that from the end of the 1940s onwards, the Brazilian art world had seen a growth in interest in Abstract Art, albeit not without major resistance from the figurative artists linked to the Nationalist aesthetics of the 1930s, such as Di Cavalcanti (1897 - 1976). Despite the negative reaction, the enshrining of abstract trends, especially the trend towards the geometric, at the 1st Biennial of the São Paulo Museum of Modern Art (subsequently the Bienal Internacional de São Paulo [São Paulo International Bienal]) in 1951, indicates that the discussion on figuration versus abstraction had been largely superseded, and from then on a need emerged to change the focus of the public debate.

In this context, the exhibition of the Ruptura group in 1952 and the group manifesto published in the same year represent the opening to a new debate that was introduced within abstract circles. The manifesto, edited by Cordeiro, with a layout by Haar, which appears to have provoked stronger reactions than the actual works presented, established a strong position against the main artistic currents within the country. The intention was to break with the "old", namely: "all the varieties and hybridizations of naturalism; the mere negation of naturalism, i.e. the "incorrect" naturalism of children, mad people, "primitives", expressionists, Surrealists etc.; hedonistic non-figurativism, the product of gratuitous taste, that seeks the mere excitation of pleasure or displeasure".² If, on the one hand, the opposition to any form of figuration was nothing new, on the other, the rejection of informal abstraction was unprecedented, and aids in understanding the group's position.

In the post-war environment marked by a degree of optimism and the desire to forget the barbarism of the preceding years, Concrete Art (1930) of an extremely rationalist character, experienced a new flourishing. Within this movement, the Swiss artist Max Bill (1908 - 1994) became the main theorist of Concrete Art of the period, attempting to rethink its legacy together with a reflection on Constructivism, Neoplasticism and the German experience of the Bauhaus, adapting it to the new reality. It is precisely as followers of the Swiss artist that the members of the Ruptura group took up their stance within the Brazilian art world of the 1950s.

In general terms, the group defended autonomy of research on the basis of clear and universal principles, capable of guaranteeing the positive insertion of art into industrial society. For a concrete artist, the artistic object is simply the concretisation of a perfectly intelligible idea, with no place assigned to individual expression in the artistic process. In their eyes, every work of art has a rational basis, generally a mathematical one, which transforms it into a "means of knowledge deductible from concepts". In the context o painting, these principles correspond to the criticism of pictorial illusionism, to the rejection of chromatic tonalism and the utilisation of optical resources to create virtual movement. They also make use of materials such as enamel, industrial paint, acrylic and chipboard, paying notable attention to the development of industrial materials.

We may observe that the adoption of extremely rationalist postulates for art reveal the anxiety of overcoming the technological lag and the spiritual condition of a colonized country with an underdeveloped economy characteristic of Brazilian reality. The questions and the practice introduced by the Ruptura group stimulated most of the debates of the 1950s and were fundamental for stimulating the Neoconcretist dissension in Rio de Janeiro. The group did not promote any further exhibitions by its participants, although having attracted other members such as Hermelindo Fiaminghi (1920- ), Judith Lauand (1922- ), Maurício Nogueira Lima (1930 - 1999) and the support of the Concrete poets of São Paulo, it organised the 1st National Exhibition of Concrete Art (1956/1957). Around 1959, the Ruptura group began to break up.

Notes
¹ CORDEIRO, Waldemar. Ruptura. São Paulo: Correio Paulistano, 11 Jan. 1953. In: Bandeira, João. (org.). Arte concreta paulista: documentos. São Paulo: Cosac & Naify, Centro Universitário Maria Antônia da USP, 2002.

² MANIFESTO Ruptura (1952). In: Amaral, Aracy (org.). Arte Construtiva no Brasil. Coleção Adolpho Leirner. São Paulo: Companhia Melhoramentos, DBA Artes Gráficas, 1998. p. 266.