3 ideas
In 'O Pavão,' Braga reports reading that the peacock's dazzling colors come not from pigment but from tiny bubbles in its feathers that refract light. He reads this as the great artist's secret, reaching the maximum of nuance with the minimum of material, and then applies it to love. It is a concrete case of splendor produced by arrangement and light rather than by accumulated substance.
Braga treats a butterfly lost in downtown traffic, rain on a roof, or a passing girl as material equal to politics or war. His premise is that attention, not the importance of the event, makes an experience meaningful. The method is to slow down on what others walk past until its particular texture becomes visible.
In 'Ai de ti, Copacabana,' Braga borrows the cadence of biblical prophecy to foretell the sea swallowing Rio's glamorous beach district as punishment for its frivolity and excess. Applying apocalyptic grandeur to a neighborhood of nightclubs and apartment blocks makes the city's self-importance look both ridiculous and doomed. The mismatch between the solemn form and the mundane target does the critical work.