Salons,cafes,andliterarygatherings

One of the most common situations in nineteenth-century novels and short stories are scenes set in some space of private sociability, where families would meet and courtships took place. Within this sociability, Rio's soirées (or recitals) followed the pattern of the French salons, though adapted to local customs. Names such as Francisco Otaviano and the Nabuco family hosted some of the most elegant salons, well attended by the literary figures of that time.

Image description: This is a painting depicting a lively social parlor. The scene is full of people gathered around a piano. On the left side, we see a seated man with an open book, while in front of him is a black and white dog. On the right, a woman is playing the piano, and beside her, a standing man appears to be singing or speaking. In the background, several people are talking and watching the scene. The room is lit by natural light coming in through the windows, and decorative objects, such as vases and a wall clock, are arranged along the walls.

In collective displays of art and letters, poets had a set place, just like orators. Literature was seen as one of the main forms of entertainment at these events. Alongside music, it always livened up gatherings in the elegant homes of Botafogo, São Cristóvão, or downtown. Among the profiles of declaimers, there was everything from impassioned romantics to lovesick mystics, from actors who performed verses to improvising repentistas.

Just as poets and writers gravitated toward private literary salons, the city's cafés provided for the literary occupation of public space. Rio was famous for several cafés, bars, and patisseries tied to writers' biographies. Each generation or aesthetic movement could be found at their respective regular tables.

Still in the 19th century, there were places like À Fama do Café com Leite, better known as Café do Braguinha. There was also the Café Londres restaurant, on Ouvidor street, and the confectioneries, such as the popular Paschoal and Cavé.

Image description: This is an old photograph of a building with decorative elements. On the left side, there is a window with a white frame. In front, there is a green plant. In the center, there is an ornate structure with two columns and two side panels. Each panel contains a figure portrayed within a circle. Above the panels, there is a crown and two flags. On the right, there is another window similar to the one on the left. The background is a wall with different textures.

The most famous one, however, was Confeitaria Colombo, which spanned generations both in the court of Pedro II and in the Republic, and bridged the generations from Olavo Bilac to João do Rio.

Image description: This is a black-and-white photograph of an old store interior. On the left side, we see a large display case with objects on show. In the center, there is a reception area with people waiting. On the right, there are more display cases with products. In the background, we see a staircase with a decorative balustrade. The ceiling is high and adorned with moldings and light fixtures. At the top, there is a circular opening with natural light coming in.

Historian Brito Broca lists a dozen of these bohemian and literary spots at the turn of the century: Café Rio, at the intersection of Rua do Ouvidor and Gonçalves Dias; Java, on Largo de São Francisco; Café Paris; Café Papagaio, which Lima Barreto frequented; Café Globo, among others. They were the foundation of the "literary bohemia" that opened up the republican period.

In the following decades, cafés like Vermelhinho, across from ABI, restaurants like Taberna da Glória and Lamas, and bars like Villarino remained spaces where literature and the other arts mingled through afternoons and nights on end. These were places where one could find Drummond, Di Cavalcanti, Mario de Andrade, Djanira, Lucio Cardoso, João Cabral de Melo Neto, Iberê Camargo, Ferreira Gullar, Portinari, Vinícius de Moraes, Rubem Braga, and many other names from the 1940s -- sometimes, all at the same time.

With the growth of the city toward the south zone, many chroniclers and writers moved from downtown toward the beaches of Copacabana, Ipanema, and the deserted Leblon beach. The new bars that brought together writers and artists were Alcazar and Mau Cheiro (both by the seaside), as well as Jangadeiro and Zeppelin.

Image description: This is a black-and-white photograph of a busy street. On the left, there is an old car parked. On the right side, there is a bar and restaurant called "Bar e Restaurante Jangadeiro." People are gathered in front of the establishment, some dressed in white clothing and hats. Behind the bar, there are residential buildings with balconies.

It was the golden age of Paulo Mendes Campos's chronicles and of the renewed Rio newspapers -- such as Última Hora, the Diário Carioca and the Jornal do Brasil - which gave prominence to the city's writers. In the 1960s and 1970s, Antonio's, on Rua Bartolomeu Mitre, was one of the city's most famous bars, hosting chroniclers such as Carlinhos de Oliveira and writers such as Antônio Callado, author of Bar Don Juan, a 1971 novel inspired by this literary, political and alcohol-soaked world of Rio; and Concerto Carioca, a 1985 novel, whose mystery plot takes place in the neighborhood of Jardim Botânico.

While bars today are no longer the defining spaces for gatherings among writers, due to changing habits, the format of the sarau was embraced by different generations and reinvented its place by opening up to new voices of poets and writers. The difference is that these gatherings moved out of fancy houses and private events and took over squares, bars, and streets in a new, popular dynamic.

The periodic gatherings of CEP 20.000 at Espaço Sérgio Porto in Humaitá are famous, along with the Sarau do Escritório, which takes place in Lapa, the annual Flup soirees, Poesia de Esquinas, which took place for years in Cidade de Deus, and many, many others scattered throughout the city.