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Estética: “Cards on the table. Unbound frankness. Absolute sincerity”

Only three issues of Estética were published, as part of the series of magazines associated with the group that organized the Semana de Arte Moderna, in February 1922. It should be noted that this is the first of these periodicals published outside the city of São Paulo, a successor of Klaxon (São Paulo, 1922-1923). Two young students from the Faculdade Nacional de Direito, both in their twenties, were in charge: Sérgio Buarque de Holanda and Prudente de Moraes, neto, who included the specification in his name to distinguish himself from his homonymous cousin.

The correspondence between the future historian Sérgio Buarque and the writer Mário de Andrade reveals that the creators were inspired by the British magazine The Criterion (London, 1922-1939), founded by writer and critic TS Eliot, but had not yet found a name to their liking: “The first issue will come out in September and to that end all that is needed is some collaboration and... a title” 1. According to Prudente, in a text published alongside the first facsimile edition of the magazine, upon learning that the boys were looking for a title and that they had not yet composed the programme, writer Graça Aranha suggested Estética and offered to write the opening. It is worth remembering that the proposal was not an innocent one, since, after all, he had published Estética da vida in 1921. This points to the founders' sense of opportunity, even though not everything satisfied them. According to Prudente, Sérgio was concerned with finding justifications for the proposed name, while Graça's collaboration was welcomed, as his was “a name of immense prestige supporting the adventure” and, bluntly, declared: “Paris vaut bien une messe... and we attended the mass celebrated by Graça Aranha” 2.

The result of this situation, which placed the writer from Maranhão as godfather of the magazine, was that the opening piece, titled "Mocidade e Estética”, did not constitute a programme manifesto, as was customary in this type of periodical, since it did not explain the publication’s intentions and objectives. The editors and Estética itself only received a very brief mention in the first four lines of the last paragraph – “Armed with this spiritual force, the heads of this magazine, twenty-year-old young men, aesthetically placed themselves in order to modernise, nationalise, universalise the Brazilian spirit” –, which can be taken as an indication that the text was not written especially for the occasion. This hypothesis gains strength in view of its inclusion in Espirito Moderno (1925), published shortly afterward by Graça Aranha with the suppression of the brief excerpt mentioned, a release that was announced in the magazine’s next issue.

The writer is also at the top of the second issue’s summary, which may suggest that, in fact, Graça Aranha exerted a strong intellectual influence on the editors. However, many years later, Sérgio Buarque revealed that the author should have appeared in fourth place in the summary, with Mário de Andrade taking the place of honour, that is, the opening of the issue. However, upon returning from the printing press with the proofs, Sérgio came across Graça Aranha who, upon examining them, protested. The director uselessly tried to explain that a lottery had been held. Infuriated, Graça replied: "In Europe and everywhere else, my name comes in first place and does not enter a lottery!" 3. Instead of communicating the preferences of those responsible for ordering the collaborators, Sérgio ended up giving in to the impositions of the author of Canaã.

The bows, deference, and compromises did not prevent tensions, which were already present among the members of the modernist movement but remained until then restricted to the epistolary arena, surfacing in the magazine's pages. When submitting his contribution to the second issue, Mário declared to Prudente: “In my contribution there is a tease about Graça whose Todo Infinito is beginning to annoy me. (...) If you think this can make him sad and hurt you or the magazine, remove the jape. I won’t get angry" 4. But it was not this joke that triggered public dissension, rather the two reviews signed by Sérgio and Prudente: one in favour of Oswald de Andrade's novel Memórias sentimentais de João Miramar, disliked by Graça, and, above all, the harsh criticism directed at Estudos Brasileiros, by Ronald de Carvalho, who immediately garnered Renato de Almeida and Graça Aranha’s solidarity.

The exchange of correspondence clearly indicates how far the controversy went, with accusations and resentment on all sides. Manuel Bandeira went so far as to declare: “For me Estética should end. That thing was born badly, under an imposition [by Graça Aranha] that the boys [Prudente and Sérgio] should not have accepted” 5. One must highlight, however, that the criticism was not aimed at old common enemies, but at the production of members of the group that, just over two years ago, had met at São Paulo’s Municipal Theatre during the famous Semana. It should be remembered that Graça Aranha, an acclaimed member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, which he left in October 1924, that is, shortly after the release of Estética, was invited to give the opening conference.

In 1924, with the Manifesto da Poesia Pau-Brasil, which Oswald de Andrade published in March, disputes over the modern ideal intensified. In the third and last issue of Estética, which no longer had the contribution of Graça Aranha, it was Mário de Andrade's turn to present his interpretation of the movement in the famous “Open letter to Alberto de Oliveira”, which downplays Graça Aranha's collaboration and asserts that his differences with the writer had already been expressed during the 1922 event. This move was eventually endorsed by a significant part of the historiography written about the Semana6.

The first of several splits took place in the pages of Estética, which featured important texts by Mário de Andrade and Manuel Bandeira, but also by Carlos Drummond de Andrade, brought in by Mário, who proposed to Prudente: “Do you all know Carlos Drummond, from Minas? He is a most intelligent lad and of great value. I have some verses from him that are well worth it. If you want, I can copy and send them so you can choose” 7. Mário's performance cannot be measured only by his contributions, which, incidentally, appeared in every issue. In addition to introducing Drummond, he took the initiative to submit Oswald's book, Memórias sentimentais, to be reviewed, to send poems by Sergio Milliet, and to nominate Joaquim Inojosa as the magazine's representative in Recife.

Financial difficulties, which often hovered over literary and cultural magazines, ended up causing the suspension of distribution after the third issue. When evoking the experience of his youth, Prudente de Moraes, neto explained Estética’s objectives: “to present modernism’s reconstructive rather than demolition works” and “to conduct criticism of the movement in which I participated (...). Cards on the table. Unbound frankness. Absolute sincerity” 8, all of which were goals that the publication endeavoured to put into practice.

Tania Regina de Luca

  1. Pedro Meira Monteiro (org.), Mário de Andrade e Sérgio Buarque de Holanda: correspondência, São Paulo, Companhia das Letras, Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros, Edusp, 2012, p. 64. Undated letter from Sérgio to Mário, probably written in May 1924.↩︎

  2. Pedro Dantas [Pseudonym of Prudente de Moraes, neto], “Vida de Estética e não Estética da vida” in Estética, commemorative facsimile edition, Rio de Janeiro, Gernasa, Prolivro, 1974, p. VIII.↩︎

  3. Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, “Entrevista” in Maria Célia de Morais Leonel, Estética e modernismo, São Paulo, Hucitec, Brasília, INL, Fundação Nacional Pró-Memória, 1984, p. 171.↩︎

  4. Georgina Koifman (org.), Cartas de Mário de Andrade a Prudente de Moraes, neto, São Paulo, Nova Fronteira, 1985, p. 56. Note Mário’s spelling, which comes close to prosody.↩︎

  5. Letter from Manuel Bandeira to Mário de Andrade, dated 11/5/1925. Marcos Antonio de Moraes, Correspondência de Mário de Andrade & Manuel Bandeira, São Paulo, Edusp, Instituto de Estudo Brasileiros, 2001, 2nd ed., p. 208.↩︎

  6. According to Eduardo Coelho, “Estética: uma afirmação construtiva do modernismo” in Pedro Puntoni and Samuel Titan Jr. (org.), Revistas do modernismo, 1922-1929, Estética facsimile edition, São Paulo, Imprensa Oficial do Estado de São Paulo, Biblioteca Guita e José Mindlin, 2014, pp. 19-21.↩︎

  7. Georgina Koifman (org.), op. cit., p. 161. With the same letter, Mário sent Oswald de Andrade’s book: “it goes out a little late, but finally it goes. If there isn’t time for a note about it in the second issue of Estética, you can publish it in the third, it’s not a problem. I do agree with you that Estética cannot ignore the book”. Undated letter, probably written in December 1924.↩︎

  8. Pedro Dantas, op. cit., p. XII.↩︎