Literature and Painting: Possible Relations in Pathé-Baby, by António de Alcântara Machado

Abstract

This article aims to build narrative-pictorial relations in the work Pathé-Baby, by the modernist writer António de Alcântara Machado. To that end, we use a theoretical framework that include authors who contribute to this debate from a diachronic perspective, such as Litchtenstein and Gonçalves, as well as art critics linked to Modernism and its antecedents, such as Aumont, Serullaz, and Fauchereau. From the results achieved we understand how the visual powers of Pathé-Baby, inseparable from cinema, establish ties with the Impressionist painting and especially with European vanguards. We also comprehend how a cultural product elaborated in verbal language builds from its aesthetic specificities a fruitful interchange with its artistic context, permeated by experimentalisms and renovating attitudes. Thus, we evaluate the plural nature of this narrative and its capacity to represent a world marked by intense transformations.