MELANCOLIA EM ANTÓNIO DACOSTA, COMO REFLEXO DE UM MODO DE SER E DE ESTAR AÇORIANO

Abstract

Although the feeling of melancholy is universal and accompanies humanity, from the moment man has the capacity to think about life and death, this feeling cannot be in any way disconnected from the climate and geography in which the individual is inserted. In fact, Vitorino Nemésio sets the tone when he says that we are a bit of history as well as geography. In this sense, melancholy is configured as an ambiguous way of being that starts from the individual's inner world and from the outer world influencing and interconnecting with each other. Its expression is evidenced through a desolate mood, a discomfort that the individual wants to banish. Even in this contradiction of existence and at the same time of exclusion, melancholy is also configured as an experience and even as a way of being and being. In the case we intend to analyze, it is related to the work of António Dacosta and to a specific painting whose title Melancolia, refers us to this reflection of climate, of geography and the external elements of space and time, influencers of a way of being and being, more or less exacerbated, but always in intermediate states of melancholy. This article is developed from an insular geographical context to a particular example. The conclusion we reached is that the climate is strongly influencing a state of mind and, therefore, the contribution of this study to the theme in question is due to the question whether climate and the Azorean Island geography are allies of the feeling of melancholy in the creative actors.