Why a monstrous, big-footed painting became the symbol of Brazil’s cultural identity
In short: Painted in 1928 as a birthday gift, Tarsila do Amaral’s Abaporu features a distorted, solitary figure with an enormous foot and a tiny head. This surreal image sparked a radical movement, challenging Brazil to digest European influences and transform them into something uniquely, authentically, and proudly Brazilian.
Tarsila do Amaral, a Brazilian painter born in 1886, created Abaporu in January 1928. The title, derived from the Tupi-Guarani language, translates to 'the man who eats human flesh.' Tarsila intended the work to startle her husband, the writer Oswald de Andrade, by presenting a monstrous, sexless figure with an oversized foot and hand that shrinks toward a minuscule head. The composition, which includes a cactus and a sun-like flower, was designed to be entirely out of the ordinary.
The painting became the catalyst for the Anthropophagic Movement. Inspired by the image, Andrade authored the 'Anthropophagite Manifesto,' which used the metaphor of cannibalism to describe how Brazil could consume foreign cultural influences—specifically from European modernism—and digest them to produce a hybrid, distinctly Brazilian art. This philosophy mirrored the avant-garde obsession with cannibalism prevalent among surrealist intellectuals in 1920s Paris, where Tarsila had previously studied under Cubist masters like Fernand Léger.
While Abaporu is now a central icon of Brazilian modernism, it was not part of the seminal 1922 Semana de Arte Moderna, as Tarsila was in Paris at the time. The painting’s value has grown significantly over the decades; after being purchased for $250,000 in 1984, it was sold at auction in 1995 for $1.4 million to Argentine collector Eduardo Costantini. It is currently housed at the Latin American Art Museum of Buenos Aires (MALBA), representing a pivotal moment where Tarsila successfully synthesized international avant-garde aesthetics with the deep, characteristic roots of her home country.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Abaporú | painting by Tarsila do Amaral | Britannica
- Also: Abaporu
- Also: Tarsila do Amaral. Abaporu. 1928 | MoMA
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