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In this article, Gilberto Freyre outlines some of his thoughts about an exhibition of work by Cícero Dias—in the city of Feira de Santana, sixty kilometers from Salvador, the capital of the state of Bahia. The reason for the text was due to a suggestion made by the writer Jorge Amado in favor of a manifesto about the northeastern area of Brazil. In Freyre’s opinion, although Dias lives in Paris and is involved in the European modern art scene, he has not abandoned his Brazilian cultural reference. Freyre explains that, “Over and above his role as an artist Cícero Dias, like Pablo Picasso, is deeply rooted in regional lands and histories. They are both profoundly and lovingly attached to their roots, their land, and their people, but this in no way prevents them from communicating as artists and as men (through Paris) with other nations and other lands. Nor does it prevent them from creating art that is genuinely universal in its power of communication and vibrantly modern in its technique and expression.” For a regionalist like Freyre, Dias’s exhibition in the interior of the state of Bahia was a step that was fully compatible with his work.
O artigo é uma nota prévia em que Gilberto Freyre antecipa ideias acerca do projeto de uma exposição de Cícero Dias, em Feira de Santana, interior da Bahia, por sugestão do escritor Jorge Amado, quando pretendiam lançar um manifesto a partir daquela região. Freyre afirma que Cícero Dias, mesmo residindo em Paris e fazendo parte de notável circuito da arte moderna na Europa, não deixou para trás suas referências brasileiras. " Existe em Cícero Dias, assim como em Pablo Picasso, além do artista, um homem com raízes que vão ao fundo de terras e de passados regionais. Essas raízes prendem de modo particularmente amoroso cada um deles a uma terra e a um povo, sem torná-los incapazes de se comunicar, como artistas e como homens, através de Paris, com outros povos e com outras terras; e de desenvolver uma arte autenticamente universal em seu poder de comunicação e vibrantemente moderna em sua técnica e expressão." Uma mostra de Dias em Feira de Santana seria, portanto, para Freyre, de extrema coerência com a produção do artista.
This article by the sociologist, anthropologist, historian, writer, and journalist Gilberto [de Mello] Freyre (1900–87) is an attempt to illustrate some of the ideas in his 1926 “Regionalist Manifesto” with a painting by Cícero Dias (1907–2003), who was also from Pernambuco and who produced a form of brightly colored abstraction. In 1929, Freyre and the poet Manuel Bandeira organized the Primeiro Congresso Afrobrasileiro [First Afro-Brazilian Conference] in Recife, an event that was roughly comparable to the Semana de Arte Moderna [Modern Art Week] held in São Paulo in 1922, because it helped to consolidate the modernist movement in Pernambuco. Dias settled in Paris in 1937 and spent most of the rest of his life there.
For more on this article, see by Gilberto Freyre “Manifesto Regionalista de 1926” [doc no. 1074787].
For additional information, see by Mário Pedrosa “Cícero Dias, ou a transição abstraccionista,” Correio da Manhã, Rio de Janeiro, November 1952).
Aproximação de Gilberto Freyre e Jorge Amado em torno do projeto regionalista, exemplificado pela obra de Cícero Dias.
b- Experiencia regional e renovação artística