BRÉSIL – VIEUX PORTUGAL, Le Corbusier discovers Brazil in 1929

Besides this trip, we must also mention the intricate network of relations that Corbusier had in Paris in the 1920s. If we go back to 1917, the year he immigrated from La Chaux- de-Fonds, in Switzerland, to Paris, the then Charles-Édouard Jeanneret had a close relationship with painter Amedée Ozenfant (1886-1966) to whom he will be introduced by Auguste Perret (1874-1954), his former patron. Soon, they would start a long and fruitful artistic and professional relationship, which would last until 1924. In 1917, Ozenfant was already a well-known painter, so he probably felt enchanted by the rather young Jeanneret. Ozenfant had been living in Paris since 1905, having graduated at Académie de la Palette in Montparnasse, where he met Sonia Terk (1885-1979), a Ukranian who would become his friend and would marry painter Robert Delaunay (1885-1941) in 1910. The couple meets Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso (1887-1918), among other modernist Portuguese painters who lived in Paris5. They moved to Portugal between 1915 and 1916 to run away from WWI and would pass through Lisbon and eventually live in Vila do Conde with painter Eduardo Viana (1881-1967) after briefly staying in Monção, and in Valença do Minho. Besides their reunion with Amadeo, they also met artists José de Almada Negreiros (1893-1970) and José Pacheco (1885-1934), and spend happy and creative time in the sun, the sea, and the Portuguese colours. At Sonia’s initiative, poems by Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918) and Blaise Cendrars (1887-1961) were published in the short-lived magazine Portugal Futurista (1917)6. In fact, Cendrars was Delaunay’s friend and, after their return to Paris in 1920, it is possible that they attracted him to Portugal. The poet would remain a close friend of Le Corbusier. They had both been born in the same year and in the same Swiss town and their houses were rather near one another, yet they would only become close in Paris from 1922 onwards7.

Ozenfant had a crucial role in Le Corbusier’s name as a painter and as a public personality in Paris. Ozenfant invites him to co-author “Après le Cubisme”, published in December 1918, the first artistic postwar manifesto in Paris and an exhibition with Ozenfant and Le Corbusier’s work in Galerie Thomas. They advocated Purisme, inseparable by fixity, timelessness and transnationality of primary forms associated to a new time. This concept would be at the core of Corbusian architectural theory in a machiniste framework, which will suffer changes throughout that decade. Two years later, in 1920, Ozenfant, Le Corbusier and Paul Dermée (1886-1951) founded the magazine L’Esprit Nouveau (1920-1925), whose name evoked Apollinaire and Paul Valery (1871-1945). There, Le Corbusier will publish his initial texts that will become part of “Vers une Architecture” (1923), an international best-seller.

Through Ozenfant (and the magazine), Le Corbusier will meet many artists, gallery owners and marchands. Among many others, besides the Delaunays and their Portuguese paintings, including Robert Delaunay’s, “La grande portugaise” (1916), we may mention Georges Braque (1882-1963) and “Le Portugais” (1911), the Spanish Juan Gris (1887-1927) and Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), the Lithuanian Jacques Lipschitz (1891-1973) and Fernand Léger (1881-1955), two of his best friends. They all published their work in “L’Esprit Nouveau”. (Almost) all painters whose first modern work will arrive to Sao Paulo (and to Brazil) from the early 1920s onwards by millionaires Paulo Prado and Olívia Penteado (1872-1934), whose fortune was due to coffee production

“L’Esprit Nouveau” was probably known among the Portuguese artists in Paris, whether residents and visitors, but it was definitely known in Sao Paulo since its foundation, namely by writers Mário de Andrade (1893-1945) and Oswald de Andrade (1890-1954), who were its subscribers, and by painters Anita Malfatti (1889-1964) and Tarsila do Amaral (1886-1973). The magazine would, in fact, lead to the famous Semana de Arte Moderna (Week of Modern Art) in Sao Paulo in 1922, which is associated to the emergence of modern “nationalist”8 Brazilian avant-garde, directly linked to the promotion and patronage by Prado and that of his French wife Marinette Prado (?), or that by Penteado, Parisian habitués, including António Ferro (1895-1956), a young journalist and writer belonging to the Portuguese literary and artistic avant-garde.

Ferro, a Paris lover who would travel there often and a world citizen in 1920s Lisbon, will spend a long time in Brazil at this time and will meet all the referred important figures and others, such as Ronald de Carvalho (1893-1935), co-director of the short-lived Portuguese-Brazilian avant-garde magazine Orpheu (1915), of which Ferro had been an editor. He will, in fact, marry by power of attorney the Portuguese poet Fernanda de Castro (1900-1994), who will then travel to Brazil. Oswald and Tarsila will be their best man and maid of honour. Tarsila will even do a painting of Fernanda. Several reunions will take place during the 1920s and Ferro will regularly exchange letters with Mário and Oswald, among others. Ferro will attend at least the first of Tarsila’s two exhibitions in Paris, in Galerie Percier in 1926, and, that same year, he will publish a text on the painter in the magazine Contemporânea (1922-1926)9, as well as a text in the catalogue of her first individual exhibition in Brazil, in Palace Hotel, Rio de Janeiro, in 192910. Already in the 1930s, Tarsila will dedicate a text to Fernanda’s11 book of poems. Both women corresponded regularly.

Both Portuguese and Brazilian artists were attracted by the training possibilities and by the creative and bohemian atmosphere of Paris. Tarsila will be in Paris in 1920-21 and will be followed by Anita, who will live there from 1922 to 1928. In 1923, Tarsila will return to Paris, this time with Oswald, her lover, from where they will travel to Portugal between January and February 1923 – where they will reunite with Ferro and Fernanda – and to Spain. The relations between Portugal and Brazil were very intense at that time. Brazil, where Portuguese culture was still very strong, was the main destination for Portuguese immigration, as well as a refuge for adventurers, intellectuals, and politicians. Portugal, where Brazilian culture was disseminated and enjoyed, besides being important to all those that studied the past of Brazil, remained a destiny for Brazilians wishing to attend university and a step on their way to France and on their way back to Brazil.

The coming and going by sea was never ending. The main navigation companies, including the French ones, would stop in Lisbon on their way between Europe and South America. And as the ships slowly entered the city and the river Tagus going past Cascais and Serra de Sintra, all those travellers would discover or rediscover Lisbon and its landscape, orographic profile, topography and its relationship with the river and the sea, which reminded them of many contemporary seaside cities in Brazil, from Salvador da Bahia to Rio de Janeiro. The stopover in Lisbon, without berth, lasted several hours (many boats would slowly go in and out of the ship, to load and unload cargo) as described by Lucio Costa (1902-1998) on board Bagé in 1926, so there was plenty of time to roam the city12.

In “Précisions”, Le Corbusier refers to Paulo Prado as his best Brazilian friend13, which is why he deserved special attention. Prado was born in one of the most powerful families in Sao Paulo, a Portuguese family whose roots dated from 18th century, and he was more than a wealthy Brazilian who often stopped at Lisbon on their way to Paris. He was a well-travelled, educated, art collector (and book lover) who would become known as an homme de lettres in the 1920s, since he reflected on the past and the future of his country (and of Sao Paulo) and bridged the gap between the past and modernity with the concept of “brasilidade”. When he was in his twenties, Prado travelled to Paris at the time of Belle Époque and lived in Rue de Rivoli in his uncle’s residence, Eduardo Prado (1860-1901), until the end of the 19thc. Eduardo Prado was known for his refined taste and his interest in Brazil’s colonial history and would have been the inspiration for the character Jacinto in the novel Cidade e as Serras (1901) by José Maria Eça de Queiroz (1845-1900), one of his closest friends and also a lover of Paris.

Paulo will be part of the Portuguese-Brazilian elite that would meet either in Neuilly, at Eça’s house, or at Rue de Rivoli. In these gatherings, attended by many Portuguese and Brazilian14 personalities, we could find writer José Ramalho Ortigão (1836-1915) and, above all, historian Joaquim de Oliveira Martins (1845-1894), author of “O Brasil e as Colónias Portuguesas” (1880). This will be an important part of Paulo’s education. His wit and critical spirit would come from Eça and his historical perspective of Brazil and Portugal from Oliveira Martins15, both in terms of glorifying the 15th century Portuguese (the Discoverers and the first settlers) and in denouncing the decadence that followed, and in the regeneration, a kind of return of the heroes sung by Camões, now projected in contemporary and future Brazil, in the recreation of a Portugal independent of Europe, modern and Brazilian, a perspective that, from 1917 onwards, will appear in all his books up to Retrato do Brasil – Ensaio sobre a tristeza brasileira (1928).

But there is more. His uncle would influence his taste for collecting documents on Brazilian history, geography, and ethnography. He would also become a frequent customer of antique dealer Charles Chadenat (1859-1938) at Librairie Américaine, near Quai des Grands-Augustins, in Paris, famous for its catalog of books, maps and colonial documents in his shop’s Brazilian section. And, through his uncle, he would start and maintain a long friendship and contact with the Brazilian historian João Capristano de Abreu (1853-1927), who was also influenced by Oliveira Martins, who advocated that terrestrial and river paths were relevant for colonial history, again linking history and geography, as in Caminhos Antigos e Povoamento do Brasil (1930).

From Capristano Prado he would have probably learned about the several sources, from “Diário de Navegação”, by Pêro Lopes de Sousa 1500-1532 (1927), with an introduction by Capristano, through the extraordinary scientific expedition by Portuguese-Brazilian naturalist Alexandre Rodrigues Ferreira (1783-1792)16, to “Corografia Brazilica ou Relação histórico-geográfica do Reino do Brazil” (1817) by the Portuguese priest Manuel Aires de Casal (1754-1821), where the letter, Carta de Pêro Vaz de Caminha, rediscovered in 1773 inTorre do Tombo appeared for the first time. Prado considered it a first portrait of Brazil “na sua idílica ingenuidade (…), primeiro hino consagrado ao esplendor, à força e ao mistério da natureza brasileira (…)” where you “percebe-se o encantamento do maravilhoso achado que surgia diante dos navegantes depois da longa e incerta travessia”17. Pêro Vaz de Caminha describes paradise. This is the vision of Brasil that Le Corbusier will learn from Prado before and during his trip in 1929, just as had happened to Cendrars, as we will see later.

Their link with Brazil started in Paris, where Prado would spend his summers. From the early 1920s onwards, this group of Brazilians in Paris is known to have met with Le Corbusier’s closest friends and eventually with Le Corbusier himself. Right after his trip to Portugal in the beginning of 1923, Tarsila (with Oswald) met Cendrars in May18 and, through him, in October, she met Léger 19in his office20. It is possible that Le Corbusier, either taken by Cendrars or Léger, met Tarsila still in 192321, since there is a portrait of her by Emiliano Di Cavalcanti (1897-1976)22. Tarsila (with Oswald) would also be the link between Prado and Léger and Cendrars23. The French painter will be one of the first to sell his paintings to Prado24 (and to Penteado), with whom he would regularly meet in the 1920s25. And after a casual meeting at Librairie Américaine, through Oswald26, Prado would later invite Cendrars to visit Brazil, which would take place in 1924.

Léger and especially Cendrars would be the ones who would raise Le Corbusier’s interest in Brazil through conveying to him the vision they had been told about in Paris. After 1925, they would encourage him to visit Brazil, mostly at the pretext of Planaltina, the announced new capital of Brazil27. It is also possible that Le Corbusier crossed paths with Prado at Tarsila’s studio28, but Léger would have been the one who would bring them closer in 192629, as we know they met and maintained their contact since then30, as well as attended the same salons, such as that of Isabel Dato Barrenechea (Spain, ?-1937), Duchess of Dato, Eugenia Errazuris (Chile, 1860-1951) or Victoria O’Campo (Argentina, 1890-1979). This would have led to Le Corbusier having been invited by Alfredo Gonzaléz Garaño (1886-1969) and O’Campo31 to lecture in Argentina in 1929, and to Prado becoming his best Brazilian friend.

In 1924, aboard the Formose, Cendrars travels to Brazil for the first time at Prado’s expenses Their close friendship would be long lasting. He would go back to Brazil in 1926 and 1927, always via Lisbon, where he would also travel to at least in 1929 and in 1934. He would translate A Selva (1930) into French (“Forêt Vierge”,1938) a novel by the Portuguese novelist José Ferreira de Castro (1898-1974) based on his direct experience in the Amazon Forest. Cendrars fell in love with Brazil on his first visit, which lasted about six months, and the same would happen to Le Corbusier. He went to Prado’s tropical garden mansion at Avenida Higienópolis, in Sao Paulo, he was honoured by the city’s media, he lectured to a packed room in Conservatório Musical de Sao Paulo. The conference would include an exhibition by Paul Cézanne (1839- 1906), Delaunay, Léger, Albert Gleizes (1881-1953), Tarsila and Lasar Segall (1891- 1957), all belonging to Prado and Penteado32. He visited Penteado’s salon in Sao Paulo and parties with the local elite and was welcomed and cherished by all. He witnessed the 1924 revolution, attended carnival at Rio de Janeiro with Penteado and the 22 Group, including Tarsila and Oswald. With this group, he would travel through historical cities in Minas Gerais in search of “brasilidade”. In lush Sao Martinho, Prado’s coffee plantation near Ribeirão Petro, he experienced tropical heat, slept in the hammock on the balcony and wrote poetry. They talked about everything, they talked about Brazil, “Il m’a fait lire tout ces livres, m’initiant à tous ses travaux”33, says Cendrars. He would know Brazil through Prado’s eyes, that of the future Retrato do Brasil. However, as would happen to Le Corbusier, he did not share Prado’s pessimism of the “three sad races” – the Portuguese, the Indian and the Negro – who, for the poet, represented party, joy and optimism. He loved the mixture of people and the mixed people. And he would become emotional at the sight of the landscape and the Brazilian cities, as if he had returned to the origin of everything and travelled to a new world. He was happy and made Brazil his personal and intimate topos, (his) paradise on earth