Art and commodity in “Gesso”, from Manuel Bandeira

Abstract

This article offers a critical reading of Manuel Bandeira’s poem “Gesso”, from the book O ritmo dissoluto (1924). Along with other poems in the work, “Gesso” lyrically depicts the relationship between art and everyday life, proposing, without didacticism, a certain conception of poetry that is universally valid and contributes to renewing the author’s poetics. The analysis highlights, in particular, the relationship between art and merchandise, arguing that there is a mirroring process between the plaster figure and the poem itself, whose literary structure is permeated by the procedures of narrativity, lyrical reflexivity, and the use of free verse. Debating with Holz (1979), Lukács (2013), and Rosenbaum (2013), we seek to demonstrate how poetic work acts on the plaster statue, freeing it from its initial condition as a mere adornment and making it something humanly significant in terms of art.