ABSTRACT
This chapter explains modernism had replaced lengthy procedures with other, more expedient techniques that were in keeping with the fervent enthusiastic nature of young artists wanting to abandon naturalism. In 1912, according to Marcel Duchamp, Manet was a reference point whenever the artistic circles talked about the stir modernity was making. The only role played by plastic artists in Portugal's modernism would have been merely based on legends if it had not been for the work of Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso. The young Amadeo's culture progressed and as it did so, the aesthetic quality of his caricatures improved. In February 1912, the exhibition of the Italian futurist painters in Paris was decisive in Amadeo and Santa-Rita's choice of vanguard. Amadeo therefore, was the Portuguese painter to have taken part in the international vanguard of his time. It was the futurists' paintings that led Amadeo to discover geometrical abstractionism, followed by cubism.
