This illustration by João Abel Manta, titled ‘E fff-foguetes a assoprar…’ is part of a group of works produced by the artist for José Cardoso Pires’s book Dinossauro Excelentíssimo (Most Excellent Dinosaur) (Lisbon: Arcádia, 1972). In this piece, matching the ironic tone of the narrative depicting the life of António Salazar, Abel Manta illustrates the episode that followed the university studies of the Estado Novo’s chief figure.

 

Included in the second part of the work, titled ‘The Realm’, the illustration depicts the beginnings of Salazar’s political career, with his departure from Coimbra for the capital. In the composition,punctuated by a sky filled with rockets and festive effects, we merely see a car moving off from a group of small anonymous figures, placid beings made up of stylisedlines and childlike features who passively stand by watchingthe departure of the car bearing the graduate to the seat of government.

 

Thus, the episode depicting the arrival of the young man and future ‘Emperor’ in the ‘city of scholars’, a phase which signals the social mobility of the young Salazar, is followed by the opening of a new chapter dedicated to the rise of the man who would become finance minister and then president of the council of ministers, and the fulfilment of his political and dictatorial ambitions as the creator and chief figure of the Estado Novo.

 

 

 

Sandra Vieira Jürgens

May 2015