Salette Tavares
Maria de La Salette Arraiano Tavares, born in 1922 in Mozambique, was a notable figure whose life and work entwined philosophy, art, and aesthetics. After moving to Sintra, Portugal, at the age of eleven, she pursued her education at the University of Lisbon, where she studied history, philosophy, art, and linguistics. Tavares's intellectual journey included significant influences from her time in Switzerland and Paris, where she interacted with prominent philosophers and artists, including Gabriel Marcel and Marcel Duchamp.
Her contributions to aesthetics were recognized at the 1955 Philosophy Congress of Braga, although her perspectives sparked some controversy. Tavares's experiences also included travels to the United States, where she deepened her understanding of modern architecture and art. Despite facing serious health challenges, including depression and chronic illness, she remained engaged in teaching and lecturing on aesthetics until her passing in 1994. Tavares's legacy reflects a lifelong commitment to exploring the intersections of thought, creativity, and human experience.
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Salette Tavares
- Born: March 31, 1922
- Birthplace: Mozambique
- Died: May 30, 1994
Biography
Born in 1922 in the then-Portuguese colony of Mozambique, Maria de La Salette Arraiano Tavares spent what she described as some of the most important formative years in Africa. Tavares moved with her family to the World Heritage site of Sintra, Portugal, at age eleven. Sintra, with its hilly surroundings, vast landscaped gardens, and extant medieval city, would exercise a profound influence on her throughout her life.
Tavares attended lectures at the University of Lisbon, and then enrolled there in 1943, studying history and philosophy. A student who had broad interests, Tavares also studied art and linguistics. Such studies later contributed to her poetry. In 1947, Tavares studied at the Basel Museum in Switzerland.
She graduated from the University of Lisbon and published Aproximação do pensamento concreto de Gabriel Marcel in 1948. The next year, Tavares traveled to Paris and studied with Marcel and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jeanne Delhomme, Jean Valle, and René Huyghe, all of whom thought Tavares theories about aesthetics. Tavares began sculpting pottery in 1953, practical experience that perhaps contributed to her evolving philosophy of aesthetics. Those theories found formal expression at the 1955 Philosophy Congress of Braga, where Tavares’s paper stirred controversy because of her ideas about the inclusion of aesthetics in the larger discipline of philosophy.
In 1964, Tavares traveled to the United States, where she visited museums and studied modern architecture with architect Philip Johnson in New York City. In Philadelphia, Tavares viewed paintings of Marcel Duchamp, realizing that Duchamp was an important influence in her work. In Chicago, Tavares studied the architectural landmarks of that city.
On her return to Portugal, Tavares taught aesthetics at the National Society for the Study of Arts in Lisbon in 1965. Within a few years, Tavares developed debilitating illnesses that would plague her for the next thirty years. During the late 1960’s, she underwent a critical surgical procedure and afterward suffered from depression. However, illness did not keep Tavares from going to Paris in 1968 to march with student demonstrators.
Tavares consulted with physicians in London in 1972 and 1976, and they advised her that physicians in Portugal had treated her with the wrong medication. Her 1971 publication Lex icon was an exploration of philosophy, language, and aesthetics. Tavares taught and lectured on art until her death in 1994.