“I Want you Altered by a Tropical Love of the World”: Modern Art, People and Spirituality in Mário de Andrade’s Itinerary

The following article highlights, in general terms, two milestones in Mário de Andrade’s intellectual-existential itinerary. They constitute passages with axial dimensions of meaning, in line with the historical crossing of contemporary Brazil, namely: passages to modernity and collectivity. In our opinion, each of these passages, in Mário’s itinerary, acts in a respective form of spirituality, understood here as a radical experience of meaning that opens the human being to a perspective of transcendence and transfigures the totality of their existence. Although Mário de Andrade’s public performance is in the artistic-cultural field, it is not a matter of us delving into specialized aesthetic analyses, but of creating a dialogue with the conceptual cores underlying his work. This is done to contribute to articulating a possible outline of the Marioandradino thought and, in particular, of the Brazil project inscribed in it.

KEYWORDS
Brazil; Modernity; Collectivity; Spirituality