MODERNO EXTRA YEAR 9 #7 SÃO PAULO MAY/JUN/JUL 2017 FREE DISTRIBUTION IMPRESSIONISM AND BRAZIL Ministry of Culture and Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo present IMPRESSIONISM AND BRAZIL Curated by Great Hall Felipe Chaimovich May 16 through August 27, 2017 PRESENTATION The exhibition Impressionism and The curator Felipe Chaimovich pro- Brazil looks at the arrival and devel- vides a didactic overview of how the opment of the first industrial art in conditions that made the movement the country. Among the roughly one possible in France took hold here in hundred works on show at MAM’s Brazil as well. The exhibition retraces Main Hall are several paintings by the these developments and presents French impressionist Pierre-Auguste articles that exemplify the kind of Renoir, a leading light of the Europe- industrially produced art supplies on an avant-garde. On the Brazilian side, sale in Rio de Janeiro between 1844 the exhibition features the pioneers and the 1930s, among pochades, para- of the style in Rio de Janeiro, the sols, rucksacks, foldable easels and an German Georg Grimm, and two of his unprecedented array of pigments. pupils, the Italian Battista Castagneto and the Brazilian Antonio Parreiras. With texts by the curator and suggest- ed activities by MAM’s Educational Impressionism emerged out of the department, this edition of Moderno rapid plein-air landscape painting en- MAM Extra invites the public to learn abled by innovations in the industrial a little more about the first industrial production of oil paints during the art in Brazil. Enjoy your reading. 19th century. From there, the tech- nique branched out into other genres, such as portraiture and still-life. CONTENTS Impressionism and Brazil: 5 The Birth of Industrial Art Felipe Chaimovich Selected Works 15 Timeline 31 The Fisrt Palette 38 Antonio Parreiras Poetic Experiments 41 Educativo MAM Master Sponsorship Sponsorship Realization Works Exhibited 49 IMPRESSIONISM AND BRAZIL 7 IMPRESSIONISM AND BRAZIL: THE BIRTH OF INDUSTRIAL ART Felipe Chaimovich Industrially produced materials Duchamp. So where does Brazil purveyors of specialist art supplies. have been of interest to artists since come into this story? This rampant growth during the the beginning of the Industrial 1880s made landscape painting a Revolution. An inaugural example The industrially-produced mate- major draw at the Imperial Acad- of this interest was impressionism, rials liberally used by the impres- emy of Fine Arts, giving rise to the which marked the advent of a sionists were created in response first art school in Rio de Janeiro, as collective of independent artists to a growing market catering to the the historian Gonzaga Duque noted identified with the intense and amateur outdoor artist. The hun- in a book from 1888. This school of methodical use of new industrial dred years prior to impressionism art en plein air spurred the devel- materials for painting. Impression- had seen the advent of a new form of opment of a local strain of impres- ism emerged in France during the travel-and-paint tourism in Europe sionism, tailored to the rugged, 1870s, and its works can be found and the United States. The growing jagged terrains of places like Bota- today in the collections of all the number of adepts of plein air art fogo Cove, the changing light and leading galleries and museums fuelled a market for pochades, box crashing waves of Guanabara Bay, presenting the accepted history of easels, parasols, backpacks, and and the encroaching cityscape of modern art to the general public. an innovative gamut of synthetic Copacabana. Coincidentally, these The impressionists used oil paints pigments invented by chemists and same places today are world-fa- and paintbrushes that were new on mass-produced in factories. The mous tourist attractions practically the market to dramatically broaden result was a booming, global mar- synonymous with Brazil itself. So the expressive use of colour, volume ket, and Rio de Janeiro gives good it was during the first cycle of the and light, leaving a generous legacy measure of its expansion: in 1844, globalisation of capitalism, back in to the later artistic canon: Van the city had only six general paint the 19th century, that Brazil joined Gogh, Gaugin, Braque, Picasso, stores; by 1889, there were fifty-two the history of industrial art. 8 IMPRESSIONISM AND BRAZIL THE BIRTH OF INDUSTRIAL ART 9 Picturesque tourism was the trigger location, a practice that allowed the er’s eye in the first place. According varied pigments.8 And oil paints for brushes started to feature metal fer- air painting. It was one of these, behind this rapid expansion of the traveller to record the “impressions” to Valenciennes, this outdoor sitting artists benefitted from the industri- rules instead of bird feathers to at- Jean-Victor Bertin, who encouraged market for outdoor painting. In 1782, caused by these rugged features: should be kept within a specific time- alisation of synthetic colours. In the tach the bristles to the handle. These Corot to go practice in Fontaine- William Gilpin published a journal “From this correct knowledge of frame: “all studies drawn from life first half of the 19th century, five new metal bands made it possible to cre- bleau Forest. From 1829 onwards, on his travels in Wales, Great Britain, objects arrives another amusement; should be executed within two hours greens came on the market, includ- ate flat-belly brushes in addition to Corot painted regularly in Fontaine- related specifically to the search for that of representing by a few strokes at the very most, and no more than ing Veronese green and viridian. the traditional round ones. The flat bleau from his base in Barbizon. It “picturesque beauty.”1 In this book, in a sketch those ideas which have half an hour in the case of the rising The French firm Lefranc had four of brush enabled artists to apply thick was there that Corot adopted the Gilpin describes the challenges fac- made the most impression upon us.”4 or setting sun.”7 these new hues in its catalogue in the layers of oils, hitherto only possible “blond palette” of white-tinted ing the traveller scouting for unique From that time on, picturesque trav- 1850s, alongside only one natural- with a spatula, while retaining the hues.12 The light-filled effect was scenery, given the irregular terrain el became increasingly popular in Valenciennes’ method en plein air ly-occurring pigment, terre-verte.9 facture of the bristle tracks. the very opposite to the light-on- and wild vegetation it often involves. Europe and caught on in the United limited the chromatic effect ob- The pigments were sold in bulk, dark method hitherto dominant in The author also adds sketches of his States too, after 1820.5 tained through these quick-fire ground or otherwise, to artisanal co- In relation to painting en plein air, oil painting, as the composition no own, intended to “give a general idea sittings to the colours available lourmen, or else came ready to use, artist supplies stores offered oth- longer depended on the dark under- of the place, or scene, without enter- Besides the amateurs, professional for work in the field. The range of mixed with oil or wax. er practical items, such as folding lay to obtain foreground volumes. ing into the details of portrait,”2 as painters also saw demand grow with pigments used in painting in the late stools and box easels, parasols, back- Blond-palette painting, on the other is only appropriate for a travel guide the picturesque genre. Some tourists 18th century were pretty much the The growing demand for oil paints packs and portable palette cases, all hand, considered the background seeking to identify paintable views, even hired painters to accompany same as in the previous centuries, also drove innovation in paint pack- of which begin to be offered on the every bit as luminous as the fore- that is, picturesque settings. For them on their travels so that they with few exceptions, such as Na- aging. Up until the beginning of the mid-century catalogues of Lefranc ground. Exploring the blond-palette Gilpin, such places can be described could have something to show upon ples yellow, created from lead (II) 19th century, paints were stored in and Winsor & Newton technique enabled Corot to refine his as rough: “[…] we do not scruple to their return. The extent of the popu- antimonate around 1620. As such, pigskin bladders. However, between style and, as other painters joined assert that roughness forms the most larisation of landscape painting can the tones obtained by mixing paints the 1830s and 1840s, the English firm Taken together, these changes him in Fontainebleau from 1830 on, essential point of difference between be seen from an innovative manual in the outdoors within such a narrow Winsor & Newton started selling oil spurred by the Industrial Revolu- the Barbizon group took on an iden- the beautiful and the picturesque; as on the genre published in France in timeframe were basically restricted paints in glass syringes and experi- tion changed the practice of outdoor tity of its own. The new oil colours it seems to be that particular quality 1799 by Pierre Henri Valenciennes,6 to the effects of sky and cloud. The menting with squeezable inorganic painting. The practicality of the meant plein air painting could be which makes objects chiefly pleasing which could be used by amateurs same technical conditions applied bladders. In 1840, the North Ameri- tin tubes and the expanded palette done with a greater range of ready- in painting.”3 The notion of land- and professionals alike. The au- to coloured amateur sketches, which can John Rand patented in London they afforded saw oil paints finally made paints that, mixed with white, scape roughness became a central thor argued that landscapes should recorded the picturesque tourist’s a collapsible tin tube for storing and outstrip watercolours, the undis- could achieve far greater and more aspect of the English garden in the always be started en plein air, but impressions.