Trapped Bugs, Rotten Fruits and Faked Collages: Amadeo Souza Cardoso's Troublesome Modernism

Collage and abstractionism play a central role in modernism's history, as they paved the way that outshined illusionist representation and supported the ideal of pure formalist research putatively implied by their practice. This article revisits well-known debates on this subject (positions eit...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inKonsthistorisk tidskrift Vol. 82; no. 2; p. 100
Main Author Leal, Joana Cunha
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Abingdon Taylor & Francis Ltd 01.04.2013
Subjects
Art history
Modernism
Souza Cardoso, Amadeo de
Visual artists
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Summary:Collage and abstractionism play a central role in modernism's history, as they paved the way that outshined illusionist representation and supported the ideal of pure formalist research putatively implied by their practice. This article revisits well-known debates on this subject (positions either striving to question formalist-structuralist interpretations, or determined to settle and reinforce them) from an outer perspective: the work of Amadeo Souza Cardoso (1887-1918), still a relatively unknown Portuguese modernist painter. By analyzing Souza Cardoso's work, this article aims to discuss and disrupt art historical dichotomies such as center/ periphery, high/low, leading artist/secondhand follower, as well as to question the place of representation, narrative and the manipulation of signs within collage.
ISSN:0023-3609
1651-2294