The third element in the Pau Brasil Movement

Abstract

This article is aimed at giving a different insight into the relationship of the poet Blaise Cendrars with the Brazilian modernists. Blaise Cendrars is seen by the literary critics as directly responsible for the nationalist turn in the Brazilian Modernism, and is also seen as a guide for the Brazilians artists in their “discovery” of their own nation. Cendrars is presented here as a third element in the “Pau Brasil” movement – composed by Tarsila do Amaral and Oswald de Andrade, the three under the powerful shadow of Paulo Prado. We propose to reverse the traditional idea of a unilateral influence, in which the Brazilians are pointed out as debtors of the famous European poet, to a relationship of reciprocal influences, suggesting a joint effort, which resulted in three works: the books of poems Feuilles de route, by Blaise Cendrars, launched in 1924, Poesia Pau Brasil, by Oswald de Andrade, published in 1925, and the exhibition of the works by Tarsila do Amaral held at Galerie Percier in Paris in 1926.