A propósito de George Grosz e dos neorealistas em Portugal

A propósito de George Grosz e dos neorealistas em Portugal

In the later 1920s Grosz produced more 'objective' work in accordance with the tendency of Die Neue Sachlichkeit. At the same time, owing to the increasingly ultra-Left turn by the Communist International, a demand was made on left-wing artiststo produce unmistakably optimistic, even propagandistic, imagery. This Grosz baulked at, for all his political commitment to the cause of the working class. His statement in response to Communist criticism was first published in Prozektor, 14, Moscow, 1928. The
present translation, by Eileen Martin, is taken from the catalogue, Prints and Drawings of the Weimar Republic, Stuttgart, 1985. o . 61. (in Art in Theory 1900-1990 - An Anthology of Changing Ideas , Edited by Charles Harrison and Paul Wood)
[ ... ] Often comrades who think they are particularly clever object to my depictions of workers on the grounds that my proletarians are not, in their view, real proletarians, they are artificial figures, the product of the petty bourgeois, as the anarchistic artist Grosz sees them. What they mean is that since the working class is growing one should show the growing proletariat as a 'positive idea'. But I don't think it is necessary to meet the requirements of a 'Hurrah-
Bolshevism', that sees the proletariat as always neatly brushed and combed in the old hero's dress. I at least cannot imagine the proletariat any other way than the way I draw it. I still see them as oppressed, at the bottom of the social scale, badly dressed, badly paid, in dark, stinking housing and very often dominated by the bourgeois desire to 'get to the top'. Apart from that I very definitely don't believe that one can only serve by following a one-sided and
false idealization of the propaganda, singing praises. There are other ways of showing the worker than with his sleeves rolled up showing a strong biceps, in the style of the agit posters. You can't proceed from so sentimental an idea and say that my image is false from the standpoint of the propaganda ... You have to remember that the mass of the German proletariat has not yet become so
aware of his strength as the worker in the Soviet Union. To help the workers to understand their oppression and suffering, force them to admit openly to themselves that they are wretched and enslaved, awaken their self-confidence and stir them to the class war, that is the task for art, and it is the task I serve" (George Grosz)
Nota: alguns neo-realistas, como Carlos de Oliveira ou Mário Dionísio foram objecto da mesma crítica. Há um célebre poema do primeiro, de 1948, chamado Soneto, que responde a quem o acusava de ser triste e pessimista: "Acusam-me de mágoa e desalento, /como se toda a pena dos meus versos / não fosse carne vossa, homens dispersos, / e a minha dor a tua, pensamento. Mas desenganem-se os que possam pensar que tais versos pudessem traduzir uma qualquer traição à luta, uma quebra de solidariedade, um abandono do campo do neo-realismo. Nos versos finais do mesmo soneto o poeta escreve: Entretanto, deixai que me não cale: / até que o muro fenda, a treva estale, / seja a tristeza o vinho da vingança. // A minha voz de morte é a voz da luta: /se quem confia a própria dor perscruta, / maior glória tem em ter esperança."