Session 4 – Doctoral seminar: ‘Memory, Poetics, Hermeneutics’

Geometry in Gilvan Samico’s engravings: between technique, narrative and memory

This lecture explores the process of geometrisation in the work of the Brazilian artist Gilvan Samico, seeking to understand how the formal organisation of his woodcuts influences the construction of space and the narrative structure of the images. It is based on the hypothesis that progressive geometric rationalisation is not limited to a technical procedure, but involves a reconfiguration of mythical space, acting as a structuring principle for the relationships between form, narrative and memory.

The research adopts a comparative approach, centred on the analysis of works produced at different stages of the artist’s career, emphasising the transformations observed between the early woodcuts—still marked by an organic logic, by a variation in textures and a certain spatial depth, and the later works, characterised by flatness, the compartmentalisation of space and geometric rigour. These transformations are examined in relation to the incorporation of themes drawn from ‘cordel’ literature and the revival of images drawn from memory, often conveyed through oral tradition.

The theoretical framework draws on contributions from the history and anthropology of images, notably Étienne Samain’s reflections on the image as a form of thought, those of Hans Belting concerning the relationship between the image and the body, and those of Georges Didi-Huberman, drawing on Aby Warburg, on the survival of images. In dialogue with these perspectives, we propose an approach inspired by the tradition of the art of memory, as analysed by Frances Yates, by considering the spatial organisation of the engravings as a possible visual correlate of mnemonic places.

The analysis suggests that Samico’s work constitutes a field of tensions between formal rationalisation and symbolic persistence, in which geometry acts simultaneously as a constructive principle and as a device for organising the imagination. In this sense, his engravings do not merely represent mythical narratives, but visually structure modes of articulation between image and memory, thereby opening the way to multiple possibilities of interpretation.