José de Almada Negreiros - K4 - o quadrado Azul

"K4 the Blue Square" (1917), dedicated to the painter Amadeu de Sousa-Cardoso, author of the graphic design, presents itself as a single, compact paragraph that begins with a satirical exploration of the clichés of narrative art in the Symbolist and Realist traditions, concluding with the impossibility of narration. An initial fictional motif, involving a Marquis, a Marchioness, perfumes, and kimonos, seems to announce a story whose narration is rendered impossible by a destructive, chaotic discourse dominated by free associations of images and ideas.

Occasionally, a return to a fictional fabric is simulated, which is soon torn apart by a breathless and arbitrary series of questions, diatribes, announcements, prophecies, and pretexts for considering distinct realities—man's place in the Cosmos, speed, eternity—ending in erotic descriptions of the superimposition or annulment of personality.