Do papel ao bronze: a mulher em obras de Lygia Fagundes Telles e Maria Martins

Abstract

The female characterization in works of art seems to regularly follow the extremes of Maniqueism, having the opposition between good and bad related to its representation since centuries. However, with the beginning of the inversion of the role of creature to creator, women begin to be portrayed according to their own awareness about their own bodies. Using the expression of an erotic poetics, artists such as Lygia Fagundes Telles and Maria Martins bring to their creations the notion that being a woman overflows the limits of the body and its freedom in the eyes of others seems monstrous. Having this idea as a starting point, the present study relates short stories and sculptures of both artists, always seeking to contemplate the essence of women as being free and multiform. To this end, concepts on being a woman, from the two volumes of The Second Sex, by Simone de Beauvoir, are mobilized. In addition, five short stories present in the anthology Os Contos (2018), by Lygia Fagundes Telles, are analysed: “Antes do Baile Verde” (1970), “Tigrela” (1977), “A Medalha” (1991), “O Jardim Selvagem” (1970) and “O Segredo” (1995). However (1944,1947), Glèbe-ailes (1944), N’oublies pas que je viens des tropiques (1945), A Mulher que Perdeu Sua Sombra (1946), Fatalité femme (1948) and L’huitième voile (1949) are the works of Maria Martins that display the corpus of the dissertation. COUTINHO; CARVALHAL (1994) underlie the comparison made, together with SONTAG (1987) that underlies the reading of the works. The appreciation also relies on the critical fortune of Lygia and Maria. GIL (2000) and COHEN (2000) bring understandings about the devirmonstro, essential in understanding the perspective adopted in this study. As a result, the work presents the notion that the use of the monstrous and incoherent in the work of artists resignifies what is meant by women and, consequently, rethinks the essences of other beings.