“Fair companions”: artistic dialogues in the book design of the works by Sidónio Muralha (1920-1982)

Abstract

Sidónio Muralha, “neorealism youth promisse”, was a prolific and versatile writer, most valued as a poet and a alltime reference of Portuguese children's literature. We propose an approach to the artistic dialogue expressed on the desing of his published works, demonstrating the author's social networks and his idiosyncratic options, in the field of neorealism or other artistic movements. We aproach Muralhas’s work as a whole, not just particularly the children's books, in which, obviously, the illustrator assumed a major role. We demonstrate that, as a result of artistic friendships, almost “creative duos” and/or the right editorial choices, the published works of Sidónio Muralha had a special aesthetic care, sometimes reformulating the concepts of the book as an object. In his neorealist commitment, Sidónio chose poetry as “the companion of makind”, thus we imagined his books as “fair companions” at the service of a greater cause.