Painting in Rio Grande do Sul
The market developed, researchers and critics multiplied, updates from abroad were increasingly incorporated and an original character for southern production emerged for the first time.
[1] In the 1980s, painting in Rio Grande do Sul made a significant comeback, revisiting the past critically while globalizing and consecrating plurality as the typical current language.
Rio Grande do Sul developed a vast and richly diversified collection of paintings, a public to appreciate them and a large group of institutions capable of studying, preserving and exhibiting them.
The most notable were João de Deus, from São Paulo, the first famous set designer to work in the state; Alphonse Falcoz, a Frenchman who graduated from the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts; Manoel José Gentil, from Bahia; Eduardo Timoleon Zalony, who was active in Rio Grande and Porto Alegre, and introduced the technique of painting on glass; Jean-Baptiste Debret, a member of the French Mission, and Herrmann Wendroth, a German mercenary.
[5][4] By the end of the 19th century, Rio Grande do Sul's economy was reasonably structured and society began to express varied interests in art, including theatrical performances, classical music, opera and literary soirees.
The creation of the Sociedade Partenon Literário, formed by the intellectual community of Rio Grande do Sul, and the first art salon in 1875, included in the Exposição Comercial e Industrial, where Grasselli, Menezes and Theodor Bischoff exhibited, were important.
[5][10][11]Positivism also influenced the arts in Rio Grande do Sul by pursuing progress and democracy in order to achieve a significant and peaceful social life.
They eased the academic rigor in drawing and the organization of space, using the stain as an expressive resource and showing a new sensitivity to the effects of light, which prepared the way for the more radical innovations of the moderns.
[5][15][1] In 1903, the first event entirely dedicated to the plastic arts, promoted by Gazeta do Commercio and featuring Weingärtner, Romualdo Prati, Francesco Manna, Augusto de Freitas and Libindo Ferrás, occurred.
[16][5] The relative isolation and peculiar characteristics of Rio Grande do Sul's economy and cultural background created the conditions for the renewal of modernism to proceed in a different way.
Helios Seelinger's presence in Porto Alegre also gathered a group of artists, leading to the conception of the 1924 Autumn Salon, which would publicly open the debate between tradition and modernity and establish a local link with the renewal movements occurring in Brazil's central region.
In 1942, some members of the Associação Francisco Lisboa signed an anti-modernist manifesto, accusing the moderns of being a destructive influence on society and local traditions, due to their alleged affiliation with socialism and their lack of ethical and Christian values.
[5][12][23][24] A more consistent defense of modernism came from Manoelito de Ornellas, who had participated in the Verde-Amarelo Group, and organized the Newcomers' Salon in 1944, through the State Department of Press and Propaganda, with the aim of stimulating avant-garde research.
He created works such as the sacred decoration of the Church of San Pelegrino in Caxias do Sul, the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Conception in Santa Maria and the regionalist panels in the Piratini Palace.
Danúbio Gonçalves, Plínio Bernhardt, Glênio Bianchetti and Glauco Rodrigues were printmakers and painters who called their painting "terrorist, absurd and without technique", typifying the more experimental modernism.
In 1958, a Brazilian Arts Congress was held with the participation of Pietro Maria Bardi, Quirino Campofiorito, Mário Pedrosa, Sérgio Milliet to debate a variety of topics.
Other artists emerging during this period were Geraldo Trindade Leal, Vitorio Gheno, Yeddo Titze, Sobragil, Edy Carollo and José de Francesco.
[32] Neiva Bohns summarized the conditions of Rio Grande do Sul art at the end of the 1950s as follows: In the 1950s, the most diverse tendencies came together, not always peacefully, in the same territory, and in the same period of time: artists and teachers with a classical-academic background were still active, while modernists from different factions were settling in more and more solidly.
The other cities in the state offered little in this field; their most promising talents, such as Glauco Pinto de Moraes, from Passo Fundo, and Iberê Camargo, from Restinga Seca, sought education and training in Porto Alegre.
New artists appeared, such as Leo Fuhro, Jader Siqueira, Léo Dexheimer, Carlos Carrion de Britto Velho, Antônio Soriano, Paulo Peres, Clara Pechansky, Nelson Jungbluth, Cláudio Carriconde and Waldeny Elias.
The subject matter diversifies and begins to address problems of the big city and politics; the human body is often portrayed in ways that are not flattering or ideal and becomes a support for painting, and the whole system of education, production, signification and circulation of art is questioned.
It was a free and very democratic space of intense activity with workshops, theaters and courses for various artistic techniques that served as a school for many prominent names and as an alternative to the official education, with more restricted access, offered by the Institute of Arts at UFRGS.
Ana Alegria, Regina Ohlweiler, Fernando Baril, Paulo Porcella, Danúbio Gonçalves, Henrique Fuhro, Vera Wildner and Britto Velho, all important names in Rio Grande do Sul painting, studied there.
[5][43][48][49][41] Renato Heuser, Karin Lambrecht and Regina Ohlweiler followed the principles of informal abstraction; Gisela Waetge engaged with drawing; Petrucci and Ivan Pinheiro Machado focused on hyper-realism; Yeddo Titze pursued modernism; Heloísa Schneiders da Silva and Ruth Scneider revived expressionist figuration, and Fernando Baril and Britto Velho updated surrealism.
Many of them sought to form independent collective projects, showing their work in spaces that allowed them more autonomy and freedom and questioning the institutionalized system of art production, exhibition and consecration.
[43][53][54][5][55] The new generation was also characterized by its presence at major national salons, exhibiting assiduously in other states and abroad, by being aware of the latest developments on the international circuit, by having a strong sense of individualism and professionalism, consciously planning their careers, and by actively seeking better intellectual preparation by joining postgraduate courses and research groups.
[56][57][58][59][5][54][43] Currently, painting in Rio Grande do Sul is committed to multiplicity and freedom and works under the impact of globalization, with changes in the art system that remove the local scene as an effective leader and sponsor and suffers from competition from new media and a shrinking market.
These retrospectives represented a significant advance in theoretical studies on the history of painting in Rio Grande do Sul, reaching a level of high professional qualification.
In central Brazil, graffiti developed an artistic quality recognized by a number of critics and attracted the attention of the curators of the São Paulo International Art Biennial in the 1980s.
[69][70][71][72] In Rio Grande do Sul, graffiti has become an important method for strengthening social and cultural ties between young people, citizenship training, education about respect for diversity, and aesthetic, political and heritage awareness.
