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In this text [dated November 14, 1964], the Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre states that European culture has to some extent been influenced by tropical culture. In his opinion, “England today is showing the impact of the tropical arts within its most sacred walls. This is expressed in more thrown-together ways of dressing and an increased use of color in clothing. It can also be seen in the decoration of houses in a style more accented by the adventures of a taste confronted with tropical sweets. These phenomena can easily be seen in places such as London and New York, Amsterdam and Paris.” In Freyre’s opinion, England was beginning to allow a process of hybridization that had already begun in Spain and Portugal, which would be passed along to Brazil. The writer believes that in Brazil, a “range of arts that, in spite of being European, could be tropical as well” can be found. Among the creators of the day, Freyre highlighted Flávio de Carvalho (1899-1973), a radical architect and artist of the 1930s.
Gilberto Freyre afirma que a cultura européia sofre certa influência da cultura tropical: "a Inglaterra sofre hoje, dentro dos mais sagrados de seus muros, o impacto das artes tropicais que se exprimem em um trajo mais à vontade do traje, no aumento do uso de cores no trajo e na decoração de casas, no gosto maior pelas aventuras do paladar em torno de quitutes tropicais, existentes agora em numerosos lugares tanto de Londres como de Nova Iorque, Amsterdam, Paris". Segundo Freyre, a Inglaterra passava a admitir um processo de hibridização cultural, que Espanha e Portugal já haviam iniciado e do qual o Brasil seria herdeiro, havendo aqui um "conjunto de artes que, sendo européias, sejam também tropicais", das quais se destaca Flávio de Carvalho.
Gilberto [de Mello] Freyre (1900-87) worked as a sociologist, anthropologist, historian, writer, and journalist. From the start, he was highly conscious of the great geographic and cultural distances that separated his region from the political and economic centers, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. As early as 1926, he proposed for his city, Recife, the “Primeiro Congresso Regionalista do Nordeste” (see the manifesto in [doc. no. 1074787]). This was an event that defended aspects of the culture and customs of his region (northeastern Brazil). This was therefore the origin of his desire to offer suggestions for a new concept of “tropicalism,” which he had the opportunity to return to decades later in a lecture at the Faculdade de Letras de Coimbra (Portugal). He points out the pejorative meanings so often attributed to the term, used to designate qualities of crassness, disorder, coarseness, and primitivism, in open opposition to the idea of “civilization” claimed by a refined Europe (see “Em tôrno de um novo conceito de tropicalismo” [doc. no. 1075041]). That is how Freyre came to propose certain interpretations of man, objects, and tropical landscapes, going beyond ethnographic curiosities, the picturesque, and the exotic.
b- Valores Tropicais
c- Apropriações. Entrecruza/o de culturas: cult popular e cult erudita; cult artística e indústria cultural; cult rural, cult urbana, cult suburbana