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Fine Arts - 2 |
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At the Week of Modern Art held in São Paulo in 1922, artists discussed their dissatisfactions with the "academic" world in all fields of the Brazilian arts. The modernists wished to shock the academicians. It is not clear if the 1922 movement caused or coincided with some changes in outlook. It certainly opened broad new avenues such as the critical pursuit of quality, the search for new values, and the rejection of the old European stereotypes. There was no precursor of genius in Brazilian painting: in the 1920's painting simply emerged out of the shadows of the academy and joined the wave of innovation then sweeping Europe. The techniques were imported, but the moods and themes were clearly Brazilian. Lasar Segall (1891-1957), in 1913, was the first artist to exhibit modern art. One of the most important participants in the Week of Modern Art was Emiliano Di Cavalcanti (1897-1976), a true Bohemian from a family of poets and generals who liked to carouse in the underworld of Rio and paint seductive, mulatto women.
Cândido Portinari (1903-1962) was one of the first Brazilian artists to paint his way to international fame. Coming from a small coffee plantation in the interior of São Paulo, he experimented with Brazilian themes and colors. Once he sent for 60 pounds of earth from different areas and mixed the black, purple, reddish, and yellow dirt with his paints. Portinari captured in his canvases the way of life of ordinary people, conveying their joys and sufferings in a dramatic way. The universality of his work led to invitations and commissions from many sources, among them the monumental murals at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC and murals on the theme of war and peace at the United Nations in New York.
World War II brought about an interruption in the contact of Brazilian artists with the international art world, even though many foreign artists lived in Brazil. With the end of the War, financial sponsorship began to stimulate artistic production. In the late 1940's the Modern Art Museum was founded in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo got two museums - the Art Museum of São Paulo founded by Assis Chateaubriand and the Museum of Modern Art. With the numerous courses given in these museums, art exhibitions and other museum activities were stimulated throughout Brazil. The São Paulo Biennial, founded in 1951 by Francisco Matarazzo Sobrinho, helped to call Brazilian artists to the attention of an international audience, and to introduce foreign artistic innovations to Brazil. During the 1950s. the Biennials were the most important artistic events in Latin America making São Paulo the centre of great exhibitions of contemporary art and of "flashbacks" of international movements.
Today, the art scene in Brazil is self-assured. Brazil's painters, sculptors, engravers and lithographers show their works both within Brazil and in museums and galleries throughout the world. Current artists include: Lygia Pape, Amélia Toledo, Cildo Meireles, Jac Leirner, Regina Silveira, José Rezende, Waltércio Caldas Jr., Anna Bella Geiger, Rubem Valentim, and Glauco Rodrigues.
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