A Brazilian perspective on Paris and the Scandalous Lady in Red
‘Paris est minérale‘. Could there be a more poetic way to describe a bustling metropolis? As a Brazilian, I sure load my speeches and descriptions with hyperboles and words that defeat the rules of grammar. But mineral! Oh, I would never have thought of that, yet it remains as one of my favourite souvenirs from the years I lived in the most desirable city in the world.
Coming as I do from the tropics, where green, and blue and the intense light of the sun painted my days, the mineral shades of Paris gave space to a new concept of beauty. Rio de Janeiro is one the most beautiful cities in the world. So is Paris, but for totally different reasons.
In France, beauty comes in boxes, in legacy, savoir faire, tradition. It’s perfection and it is precise. In Brazil it can be a sunset, many different body shapes swinging to the sound of samba, it can be a leaf pattern, or the curves of Niemeyer’s buildings and monuments, the rosettes of a jaguar, or a Sérgio Rodrigues chair.
In our different conceptions of beauty, we French and Brazilians are nonetheless united in our pride, patriotism, and unstoppable bragging about our countries. I remember vividly an exchange I had with a Parisien neighbour who asked me about Brazil: I passionately expounded on all the amazing places to visit from North to South, and her response was to find a French comparison to every one of them: the Pantanal was the Baie de Somme, and Lençóis Maranhenses was the Dune de Pilar. I couldn’t believe my eyes (my ears actually) but I often find myself chauvinistically doing the same thing: the caves in Chapada Diamantina are just like the cenotes in Merida…
Parisiens and Brazilians can both be loud. Is it possible that we Brazilian Portuguese speakers have some biological mutation that allows us to project more sound from the diaphragm? I’d believe it. We don’t do quiet. But while from my apartment window in Paris, I could never tell whether the neighbours below were laughing or screaming at each other, Parisiens, however, have an additional ability: to wield the icy sword of silence with deadly effectiveness. Don’t believe me? Just check out the French stare when you burst out laughing on the metro. There is one way in France, and it’s the French way. Love it or leave it. Or alternate between loving it and hating it – in fact, there could be nothing more French than that.
And don’t think that just because it’s so damn elegant and poised, Paris can’t be weird. On my first year I lived right across Rue de Rivoli, so the Jardins des Tuileries was where I went jogging every morning. Well, turns out beyond all the perfectly tended trees, all the statues and fountains, the stylish olive green iron furniture, the even more stylish Parisiens striding by, is a herd of goats. Yes, living goats in the Jardin de Tuileries. There is even a plaque with an email address in case you have any questions about the goats – I surely did! It turns out they are moat goats employed to mow the grass in Spring. God love them.
I must admit I often felt out of place. By the third year I was taking advanced French and my teacher told me it was time to learn french confrontation – once I had mastered that skill, I would be ready. This was absolutely counterintuitive for me. Brazilians are incapable of being direct when something is wrong or to their dislike. We will find nice words and swallow the truth to avoid hurting each other. Being direct and transparent is actually considered rather rude. Yet, I was being told I had to do all this things if I wanted to communicate like a French person, or at least like an acceptable foreigner. The result is that the way I speak French, out of all the languages I speak, is the furthest from my native tone. Even in German I sound nicer.
When I found out my partner was being relocated, I felt there was not enough time to do all things I still wanted to do, or see all the exhibitions I still wanted to see. Luckily my folks were visiting and I took some time off to be a tourist with them. Did we concentrate on French grand masters, French history, French land-marks? No, we hot-footed to the Musée de Luxembourg for an exhibit of the Brazilian modernist artist, Tarsila do Amaral. For a few hours I got to listen to family stories from the 1920s when the modernist movement was busting in Brazil, and I could travel back to my country through Tarsila’s gorgeous paintings.
And one painting perfectly summarizes the clash and amalgam of cultures that I’ve been writing about: her self-portrait wearing a red coat (Autorretrato – Le Manteau Rouge, 1923). There she stands, proudly and confidently, elegantly, exotically, scandalously even, dressed in crimson red. The Brazilian female artist in Paris, living up to and subverting the expectations of the male Parisien Eurocentric art world into which she boldly stares.
As a Brazilian onlooker myself, living in Paris, what I saw was the joy, the roots, the pride. I respond to the vibrant contrast of her red dress with the sombre mineral tones of the city – Paris est minérale, but this painting is warmth embodied. After all, the name Brazil comes from “brasa“, meaning ember, and I can’t believe she wasn’t making this statement somehow. Certainly, that’s what it said to me.
