A série Italian Heritage – Personalities this Sunday brings the artist’s trajectory Candido Portinari, Brazilian painter who went down in history as one of the main names in Modernism.
Portinari was the son of Italian immigrants Giovan Battista Portinari e Domenica Torquato, who arrived in Brazil at the end of the 19th century, coming from the city of Chiampo, in the province of Vicenza, Veneto region.
Just like thousands of Italian immigrants, Giovan and Domenica came to Brazil due to the serious crisis that Italy was going through at that time.
Unification of Italy
After more than 20 years of fighting for unification of the country, Italy was experiencing serious socioeconomic difficulties. The armed battles to expel the invaders caused the destruction of cities and buildings essential for country's social recovery.
Some schools, churches and public and private buildings were badly hit, especially in Veneto, where Giovan and Domenica lived, first region occupied by the Austrians and last to be released.
At the same time, at the turn of the 19th century to the 20th century, countries in South America offered good conditions for immigrants. Brazil, for example, needed to meet the growing labor demand for work in coffee farms in the states of the Southeast and South of the country.
Portinari family on the farm
Therefore, Giovan and Domenica's families crossed the seas Mediterrâneo and Atlantic and headed towards the region of Ribeirão Preto, already considered the capital of café, settling in the city of Brodowski, he was thirteen years old and she was six years old.
After some time of adaptation, with family members coming from the same city in Italy, and forming the Italian colony in the region, the two married early, settling in Santa Rosa Farm, located in the rural area.
The couple adapted very well to the Santa Rosa farm, with Giovan Battista working on the coffee farming and Domenica taking care of household chores in the colony, like what happened in other italian families.
Candido Portinari is born
They they had 12 children, the second being born in December 30, 1903 and received the name Candido. When he was born, he was given the affectionate nickname of candinho, due to his slight appearance.
At six years old, Candido Portinari I was already starting to draw. He did not complete primary school and, at the age of 14, participated in the restoration of the Brodowski Church.
At the age of 15, Portinari went to Rio de Janeiro and settled in a family home. He joined the Lyceum of Arts and Crafts, but the big city didn't fascinate him and he decided to return to Brodowski.
However, at the age of 18, he ended up returning to Rio de Janeiro and joined the National School of Fine Arts.
The first steps
In 1921, he sold the canvas Dance in Roça, which he had painted as soon as he arrived in the city. In 1922 he exhibited at the School of Fine Arts Hall. In 1923, his work Portrait of Paulo Mazuchelli won all three awards at the Salon.
Portinari received the right to choose his teachers from the school director. In 1928, he presented his works at the Salon and won the Travel Abroad Award with the portrait of Olegário Mariano.
Candido Portinari traveled to Europe and visited Italy, England e Spain and settled in Paris, the Rue du Dragon, between the Luxembourg and Louvre museums. In 1930, he married a Uruguayan Maria Martinelli. During two years in Paris he produced just three still lifes.
In 1931, he returned to Rio de Janeiro and in six months painted forty canvases. That same year, he was invited by his former colleague from School of Fine Arts and then director of the Academy, the architect Lúcio costa, to participate in the Salon.
International awards
In 1932, Portinari held a solo exhibition at Palace Hotel, in Rio. From then on, he focused on social issues and the search for express the Brazilian land. Until then The coffee (1934) defines this phase.
In 1935, the work was awarded a prize at the International Exhibition of Modern Art, promoted in the United States by Carnegie Foundation. Portinari became the first modernist painter awarded abroad.
O Portinari's realism began to tend towards the monumental and the reasons for the exaltation of manual labor and man-earth exaltation gained primacy in their works.
Still in 1935, he was invited to teach mural painting at the Art Institute of the University of the Federal District. Among his students was Burle Marx, the future renowned landscaper.
Portinari in the world
In 1936, he painted frescoes of the Road Monument, on the Rio-São Paulo road. Between 1936 and 1945, he painted nine panels for the new university building. Ministry of Education and Culture, with themes from Brazil's economic cycles, such as Cotton, Carnauba, Rubber, Sugar Cane, Cocoa, brazilwood and Smoke.
In 1939, Portinari created three panels for the Brazilian pavilion in New York World's Fair. That year, his son was born João Candido. In 1942, she painted the frescoes of the Library of CongressOn Washington, capital of the United States.
In 1944, he was invited by Oscar Niemeyer to decorate the Pampulha chapel em Belo Horizonte, capital of Minas Gerais. He also painted the San Francisco and 14 scenes from the Way of the Cross.
As a result of aesthetic objections, for years the Church refused to consecrate the temple. Also from this phase is the series Withdrawals (1946), with its emaciated, mutilated and ragged characters, which was exhibited in Paris and one of the paintings was acquired by Museum of Modern Art.
War and peace
In 1940, Portinari painted the large panel Tiradentes to Colégio Cataguases, in Minas Gerais. In 1952, he created the panel The Arrival of the Portuguese Royal Family in Bahia.
That same year, the study began to prepare the two large panels War and peace, from the headquarters of United Nations (UN) in New York, which were completed only in 1956.
In the last years of the 1950s, the Brazilian modernism took a step beyond expressionism, but Portinari remained faithful to his style, since abstractionism had thrown his entire style into crisis. aesthetic world.
In 1960 his granddaughter Denise, which became theme of his latest works – a series of portraits that denote cubist influence.
Candido Portinari died in Rio de Janeiro, on February 6, 1962, victim of poisoning from the paints he used.
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