Ester Nelly Abuter Ananías - Fachbereich Philosophie und ...

Luiz Fernando Dias Duarte ( Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Museu
Nacional, Brazil )
Damascus in Dahlem : Roberto Burle Marx’s Berlinese ‘Conversion’ to Tropical
Aesthetics in Landscape Design
One of the main features of Burle Marx’s biography is the idea that he discovered
the aesthetic qualities of tropical fl ora that came to characterize his famous new
approach to landscape design in a juvenile visit to Berlin-Dahlem Botanical Gardens,
in the 1920s. Having been born [1909] and brought up in São Paulo, he is supposed
not to have had a previous contact with tropical spontaneous richness, thanks to
the Europeanized taste that prevailed in gardens and urban landscape there. As any
young member of the local elites with a disposition towards an artistic career, his
family trip to Europe was an essential condition to a close contact with the avantgarde
tendencies of early 20th century. It was also usual for Brazilian less fortunate
prospective artists to depend on government or on a private patron to allow for the
“European trip” that would open the paths for a creative career. Ever since the 19th
century, that patt ern of contact with ‘civilization’ had entailed the emergence of
diff erent trends of ‘nativist’ renderings of metropolitan taste. In such a context, the
peculiar aspect of r bm’s European début was the ‘discovery’ of tropical nature and
not only that of the formal, ‘universal’ language of high culture. Th e discussion of
what is involved in this game of mirrors is the aim of this paper, involving also the
process of some European artists ( mostly photographers ) who got involved with
tropical nature and culture and came to belong to r bm’s artistic circle and aesthetic
party.
Email lfdduarte@uol.com.br
Section Travels Between Europe and Latin America ( 15th through 21st centuries )
Panel 67
Date July 30
Time 15 :00
Location l 116