Priscila Lena Farias / Anna Calvera Marcos da Costa ... - Blucher

The doctrines of Good Taste
At the end of 1932 he presented his cultural ideas in a newspaper
article where he defended that:
The Art and Literature conscious and deliberated development
is, after all, as needed to a nation progress as its sciences,
public infrastructures, industry, commerce and agriculture
development. […] The Política do Espírito [Policy of the Spirit 4 ] […]
it’s not just necessary, although of the utmost importance in such
point of view, to the Nation’s outer prestige. It’s also necessary to
its inner prestige, its reason to subsist. A country that don’t see,
read, listen, feel, don’t walk out of its material life, become an
useless and bad-tempered country. (Ferro, 1932).
These thoughts, discussed also in personal interviews he did with
Salazar, led to the invitation to implement SPN/SNI one year later.
There, he finally launched Política do Espírito program, establishing
culture as one of the Nation founding stones.
During these interviews he told Salazar ‘there are a bunch of
lads, full of talent and vigour, that wait, anxiously, to be useful
to their Country!’ (Ferro, 2007 [1932]: 59). Working with these
lads, Ferro would merge regime principles with this new generation
influence (to which he belonged). This dubious attitude that
strived for the new denouncing the decadent orthodoxy was at
the same time cherishing the essence of the vernacular, the authentic,
the primordial. This search for genuine, this return to the
roots, had been fundamental for much of the artistic research
produced since mid 19th century, and by the recent [re]discovery
of primitive and local folklore valued by modernists artists
as an escape to academic discipline.
Influenced by the power of analysis and synthesis brought by
Modernity (although far from the radical interpretations close to
Functional and Abstract rationalism) this assorted group of artists
5 would work with SPN/SNI transposing the regime ideals in
several different media. They would purify formal features of folk
arts reducing them to an assortment of recognized formulas that
were subsequently applied to communicate official values.
From 1933 onwards, the SPN/SNI developed numerous activities:
several popular competitions; the creation of theatre and ballet
companies; traveling cinema and libraries services; diverse
editorial lines (from tourism guides and art catalogues to propaganda
pamphlets in various languages); an extensive program
of national prizes; the development of an ethnographic collection
presented all around the world (housed since 1948 in Museu de
Arte Popular [Popular Art Museum]); the production of a large
number of exhibitions; and the significant task of presenting
Portugal abroad in many different events.
3. An aesthetic doctrine
The aim of this paper is to centre attention on Panorama; sub-
4 Ferro mentioned the homologous conference presented days before by Paul
Valéry at the Université des Annales, November 15th of 1932, “La politique de
l’esprit, notre souverain bien” (published in 1936).
5 Among the team of artistas-decoradores [decorator-artists] were Bernardo
Marques, Carlos Botelho, Eduardo Anahory, Emmérico Nunes, Estrela Faria, José
Rocha, Manuel Lapa, Maria Keil, Fred Kradolfer, the Novais brothers, Paulo Ferreira,
and Tom.
titled art and tourism Portuguese magazine, it was published
by the SPN/SNI from 1941 on as Estado Novo culture organ: its
purpose was to report and publicize the regime’s initiatives and
values. A series of 16 articles labeled Campanha do Bom Gôsto
[Good Taste Campaign] presented advices on good practices
on living and on doing in what was then called decorative and
graphic arts. Other articles reported exhibitions and state initiatives,
presented examples and models, defended guidance values,
since all the editorial line of the magazine was understood
as a massive aesthetic doctrine campaign.
The main goal of Campanha was promptly summarized in its
first article (fig.1):
These pages of Panorama are reserved, every month, to the
instinctive and impartial promotion of examples of ornamental
good taste found all through the country within reach of our
cameras, because what only tempt us can as easily disappoint us.
What grabs our attention is what enchants us. That’s why People’s
good taste is, in tourism, the best partner of the landscape
picturesque. (Panorama, 1941a)
Good taste was understood as:
a certain style, a certain grace, a certain touch of originality
that makes a façade or a simple house window, a shop window,
a poster, a corner of a waiting room, a restaurant table, etc,
discreetly attract our senses and, affectionately, fondle them.
The fair note of comfort and sympathy is given by the harmonious
convergence of the visual elements (colours and shapes) with
logic and strict compliance to the designed purposes [and that]
will not been done because it’s modern art since good taste isn’t
modern or ancient.
Although immediately it was mentioned that:
proof is that we would always prefer, for instance, an interior
decorated with old objects and furniture, to another with modern
ones — just as long as, in the first case, everything is right
(attractive, friendly and civilized) and, on the second case,
everything wrong (the contrary of what we said).
In this article, if on one hand abstract principles of rational and
functional harmony were mentioned (the ‘strict compliance of
Figure 1. A Tom poster, SPN windows by José Rocha and a restaurant interior by
Maria and Francisco Keil (Panorama, 1941a).
Design Frontiers: Territiories, Concepts, Technologies 266