We often see in history how issues boil over and traverse the boundaries imposed by categorical organization. Ideas come other disciplines of their With industrialization transforming Brazilian capitals, the country finds itself trying to navigate the post-World War I international landscape, and internal conflicts regarding how that should be done erupt throughout the country. Nevertheless, a spirit of ambition that has been brought from the rapid changes and quick-paced development of the country rushes through not only the general population but also societal leaders, who now strive to place Brazil in a more advantageous spot in the world of global diplomacy. No longer as a subservient Latin nation, but as a regional powerhouse, a developed and complex nation that is not only bursting with culture, nature, and riches, but also a breeding ground of scientists, engineers, artists, and philosophers. It is, however, not an easy task to change these views on a global scale.

This clash with the reality that the overwhelming majority in the global north seemed to have a completely distorted view of what Brazilian society has fueled the flames of a country that was striving to control its own narrative. Artists of the time were able to tap into that effervescing sense of being that was bubbling throughout the country. The country was changing, and so were its people. The ever-increasing melange of cultures that created Brazilian society grows further and further from its roots with the passage of time, transforming into something reminiscent of its components, but completely new.

Centuries worth of history and ever-developing and mingling identities culminate into one of the most important art events of the twentieth century, the "Semana de Arte Moderna" (Modern Art Week) held in São Paulo in 1922. A grand event, comparable to the likes of the legendary Armory Show of 1913. It brought together artists from all over the country, to showcase the best Brazil had to offer in the fields of painting, literature, sculpture, architecture, and music. These artists, alongside a legendary group of curators and other art professionals, put together a week of events that masterfully transformed the overflow of information into pieces and actions that catalyzed a unique and modern Brazilian identity and cultural production. From this pool of artists many movements are born, one of them being Anthropofagia, led by Oswald de Andrade's "Manifesto Antropófago".

Anthropophagy as a movement has its creative roots in the act of consumption. Much like most other living organisms, anthropophagy sustains its own life through consumption, and through this act, it changes and takes upon itself the characteristics of its prey. Consumption is sacred in Anthropophagy. The cannibalism committed here is not one made out of desperation, but one made as a rite. An offering to the chaos that governs the world, that imbues the practitioner with the knowledge and power of its sacrifices. This ritualistic consumption of culture, technology, identity, information, and opinions creates experiences that enable the artist to produce works that go beyond the original references. Changing the Brazilian narrative established by foreigners meant reclaiming that distorted image, consuming it, and turning it into something new. For Anthropophagists, it meant reclaiming cannibalism.

Anthropophagy was a great tool in this battle of perceptions and worked as a philosophical way of explaining Brazilian identity. The tenets of "Anthropofagia" are statutes that define a movement, however, they also make a way of understanding the chaos that birthed the nation. Through the consumption of that chaos, the consumption of the multitude of ethnicities and cultures that composed Brazilian society, "Anthropofagia" led art towards an understanding of generalized Brazilian culture through the conceptualization of the multitude of individual and personal identities that compose the country.

These disputes of narratives, an invisible war of opinions, seem like an inescapable part of human socialization on a large scale. When utilizing a post-colonial viewpoint, this narrative dispute can be pinpointed in many different places throughout Brazilian history. The viewpoint of the champion, in the case of most American countries that champion would be the colonizing nation to some degree, is taken as righteous and legitimate, oftentimes as superior to the views it just won against.

When looking at Brazilian history, the country's power structures, and foundations, there is a dominating narrative that maintains the status quo established by the Portuguese when they decided to colonize that part of the continent. This narrative is one established by the monarchy in tandem with the catholic church, and the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and is held together through pacts with different sectors of society. It's a narrative that has disseminated itself through mass enforced catechism promoted onto natives, immigrants, and slaves, that has abdicated the country of its sins in the name of the expansion of Catholicism and the erasure of differing theologies. The missionary spirit of the Catholic church, one that has been well documented by historians throughout the world, fused with Portugal's mission to colonize the new world, seeing in this endeavor a way to branch out influence and conquer new followers.

The relationship between the colonizing powers at will, the roman catholic church, and the trans-Atlantic slave trade was a defining factor of Brazilian colonization. Their relationship created a system that expanded the influence of these players. While the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the Portuguese government provided the operation with manpower and capital, the catholic church legitimized these actions through spirituality and ethics. The church gave citizens a meaning and reasoning to the structures established, it provided its followers with their own spiritual structure for their personal lives, and a community to partake in.

To implement that viewpoint into the societal subconscious, pacts are made between those who control power and different segments of society, looking to find a more advantageous and comfortable place for themselves. The church had a longtime pact running with the artistic class. For decades it had been traditional for the Catholic church to have many artists under its control. Sculptors, painters, architects, and the like have created monuments big and small for catholic operations worldwide for centuries. Be it through religious frescos, great war paintings, architectural and sculptural monuments, or through visual/auditory/written storytelling, art was and is constantly used as a tool to win over influence in the war of opinions.

Churches were/are not only places of worship, but also galleries with a curated collection and dedicated show spaces, and with a devoted returning audience. Idols big and small personify and bring to life the catholic pantheon. Jewelry, adornments, prayer beads, all imbued with religious meaning, strengthen societal ties with catholic norms, morals, and rituals by bridging the gap between faith and material reality and giving a physical form to the divine. These pieces are not just viewed, but worshipped, prayed to. They are central components of religious rituals and can act as a bridge between the sacred and the believer's personal space.

As biblical paintings sit alongside those depicting historical moments attended by the church, like the series of paintings made of the evangelization of the native land in South America, they send subliminal messages that canonize the catholic narrative into the people's minds. This soft power exercised by catholic institutions was essential in the assurance of longevity for the society they were constructing. This can be seen in the sheer number of self-declared Catholics living in Brazil, which according to a 1940 census was a whopping 95% of the country.

The mass catechism enforced by the Portuguese Government and the Catholic Church was violent and unusual. It served the purpose of purging this new society of deviant belief systems, sanitizing the local shared identity, and also establishing a clear dominating caste and hierarchical system. The belief systems being erased were those of the people colonized under Portuguese rule: native tribes from South America, each with their own language, culture, and belief systems, and enslaved people brought in through the trans-Atlantic slave trade, each bringing their own unique experience and creeds.

When the Anthropophagists were making sense of the Brazilian experience in the early twentieth century, they barely touched the tip of the iceberg. While masterful in what it was, the construction of an identity, there was not much space in their mission for deconstruction and criticism of the history and context that made up this society. Unlike European art, which had taken a turn to dissect and take apart their own reality with movements like Dadaism in the aftermath of the Great War, Brazilian art was still trying to build something.

With time and differing landscapes, artists begin to slowly peel back the image that was constructed to reanalyze its structure. Anthropophagy was a strong tool in the battle of perception and laid the groundwork for much deconstruction and reanalysis to be done in the future. The legacy of Anthropophagy is strong in Brazilian art and has shaped many discussions throughout the years.

The cannibalistic spirit brought forth by anthropophagic legends of the past persists through time and finds in the present-day fertile ground to spread its roots. The zeitgeist of a time that seems to be post-hope recalls other tumultuous epochs of our history and seems to modernize the artistic response through consumption of the technologies and ideas birthed in the past. The loss of hope is a crack on the official narrative of things that is difficult to paste over, and the desire to bust it apart permeates through those unrepresented by it. As the pieces chip and break off the image that has been previously masticated and curated, the chaos and rot underneath it is shown. From this chaos comes everything, from the rot the vermin are born.

In a time of tumult, Brazil finds itself needing to reevaluate the paths taken in the past. No longer can things be swept under the rug. For the construction of something new, the old must be understood, it must be consumed. Anthropophagy renewed is eating itself, and in the process consuming its own byproducts and adjusting to the time.

Art is creating a space that is in constant digestion of its context. Brazilian artists have been creating pieces that bring concepts of spirituality and divinity into a socio-political and historical context. At times, that contextualization is abrupt and transformative, like Tiago Sant'anna's "Açucar Sobre Capela" (Sugar Over Chapel) which covers a colonial plantation chapel in a sheet of sugar as a way of highlighting the relationship between the church and the slave driven local economy, mainly dependent on sugar cane farming, or it can be done through subtle imagery that connects the practice to a contemporary mindset, which is the case with the queer subtext found in much of Arthur Scovino's and Edu de Barro's work.

These pieces can highlight a religious approach that these artists have to their process, or a longing to find a spirituality that fits into their perspective and experiences. The works of Edu de Barros and Tertuliana Lustosa bring forth imagery from marginalized and poorly represented segments of society, canonizing them as celestial beings. In other cases, you can see in the pieces the desire to create an experience that encompasses a decolonized sense of Brasilian identity. Castiel Vitorino and Jamile Ratter create rites and spaces of healing that harken back to a pre-catechized divinity.

Be what it may, Anthropophagy unites them.