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Biographies and autobiography in comparison
Biographies undeniably play a noteworthy role in Agustina’s works. Santo António (1973), Florbela
Espanca (1979), and Sebastião José (1981) were cultural and political characters who fascinated her.
However, biographies of female painters seem to be prominent in several of her novels: Agustina
made the biographies of three Portuguese painters – Vieira da Silva (1982), Martha Telles (1986) and
Paula Rego (2002). Further, she took part in projects connecting literature and painting – As Meninas
(2002) with Paula Rego, and Metamorfoses (2007) with Graça Morais.
Agustina’s biographies seems to show that she is much more interested in the lives of the artists
than in the interpretation of their works. Actually, Agustina does not handle biographies as an “art
critic”, but as a novelist and a biographer.
She seems to be particularly attracted to female creators. The troubled life of Florbela Espanca,
the artistic genius of Martha Telles and Paula Rego show that women complexities are much more
fascinating than men.
In Agustina’s novels, women are the protagonists. They mingle several moral weaknesses – envy,
revenge, and evil – with strengths – will power, patience, and fight against a social order facing them
as fragile and helpless.
Several places of Agustina’s novels – Vale Abraão (region of Douro), Corte do Norte (in Madeira),
the Concerto dos Flamengos (in Azores) – become meaningless without women’s presence. Their
dependency is reciprocal: women help defining a region or a house, but in turn are carved out by the
place.
The same features are noticeable in Agustina’s biographies, especially in Florbela’s life. She is
portrayed as a very unhappy woman. According to Agustina, she became lonely and melancholic, and
her poetry reflects this traits. In fact, Florbela’s detachment from Portuguese society at the beginning
of the 20 th century is a reality that has not gone unnoticed to some, as for instance to Anthony
Soares who with perspicacity pointed that (1996: 53):
From an early age, Florbela realizes her true relation to society’s identity, which is built
by exclusion, not inclusion. In her case, patriarchy was extremely successful in excluding
her; it did such a good job that she was more ready to identify with death than with
anything in life. (…) Death becomes her ideal home, her ideal life, whereas patriarchy was
a living death.
Agustina thinks that Florbela’s poetry echoes this feeling. Her life and poetry exhibit a hearty
narcissism: “pure narcissism leads her to the marriage. (…) She seduces men to keep alive her own
image.” 14
In a 1985 interview, Agustina says the following:
I didn’t like Florbela or her work. I had nothing to do with Florbela. It was the kind of
woman I considered a bit whiny and always regretting something to hide very deep
secrets she didn’t want to face. But I always had some doubt about my ability to judge
people and to judge a situation. And then I did the best I could, and I knew Florbela’s
biography.
Biographies then mean to Agustina two things: the desire to overcome some apparent and hasty
impressions about others; and the self‐image of a poor judge of characters.
Years later, Agustina goes back to those reasons in Paula Rego’s biography: she didn’t feel mostly
interested in the painter, because Paula offered her the impression she felt uncomfortable and
emotionally distant from Portugal: “the same unnerving and detached tone when Vieira da Silva
spoke of Portuguese things.” 15