Clodomiro Amazonas (Taubaté SP 1883 - São Paulo SP 1953)
Clodomiro Amazonas was a painter and restorer. He takes up painting at the age of 16, restoring canvases and frescoes at the Convento Santa Clara in Taubaté. He studies with the painter Augusto Luís de Freitas (1868 - 1962) in the late 1890s. Keen to promote cultural activities, in 1905 he founds the Associação Artística e Literária in his hometown. He moves to São Paulo in 1906, where he comes into contact with the work of Baptista da Costa (1865 - 1926) and takes lessons with the painter Carlo de Servi (1871 - 1947). Alongside his artistic activities, he works in public offices and as an illustrator for publications such as the Revista da Semana. From 1924 onward, he devotes himself exclusively to painting. He keeps in touch with intellectuals, writers and artists such as Monteiro Lobato (1882 - 1948), Menotti del Picchia (1892 - 1988), Lucílio de Albuquerque (1877 - 1939), Georgina de Albuquerque (1885 - 1962) and Pedro Alexandrino (1856 - 1942), among others. He is one of the founders of the Salão Paulista de Belas Artes, in 1934. He becomes above all a painter of São Paulo landscapes, working in oil, watercolor, charcoal and pastel.
Critical Commentary
At the beginning of his artistic career, Clodomiro Amazonas works as a restorer and later devotes himself to illustrating various publications, such as the Revista da Semana. He becomes essentially a landscape painter. His canvases are known for their views of dense woods, streams and hills with colorful trees in the interior of São Paulo, as in Caminho com Jacarandá Paulista [Path with São Paulo Jacaranda] (1935). He keeps apart from the innovations of the modernist movement, remaining faithful to a more traditional technique. His work invites comparison with the painting of Baptista da Costa (1865 - 1926), in its way of depicting nature and its harmonious palette.
Clodomiro Amazonas's early works show smooth brushstrokes and more detailed compositions. Later his handling becomes broader, and he also uses the palette knife. As the art historian Ruth Tarasantchi notes, the artist makes sketches on site and then transfers them to canvas in the studio; at other times, he works from photographs he took himself and from postcards, as in Trecho da Praia de Itapuca, em Niterói [Stretch of Itapuca Beach, in Niterói]. The same procedures and subjects are used by other artists, such as Wasth Rodrigues (1891 - 1957) and Oscar Pereira da Silva (1867 - 1939).
Regarded by the critics of his time as the "true Brazilian painter",1 Clodomiro Amazonas creates poetic landscapes featuring specimens of Brazilian flora, such as ipês, quaresmeiras and embaúbas, with wide perspectives and a palette of luminous tones.
Notes
1 Citado em TARASANTCHI, Ruth Sprung. Pintores paisagistas: São Paulo 1890 a 1920. São Paulo: EDUSP; Imprensa Oficial do Estado, 2002, p. 254.
Critiques
"Essentially a landscape painter, C. Amazonas was an artist of merit, whose painting, cast in drawing of great solidity and in realistic color, nonetheless radiates a certain rustic poetry. Nature, which he portrayed more than interpreted, was his main point of reference, his goal, but also his limit. One may reproach this artist for his lack of curiosity and daring, his attachment to formulas and schemes going back to Batista da Costa and even further, this 30 years after the Modern Art Week of 1922; one cannot, however, deny his sincerity, nor fail to recognize the high level of craftsmanship and even of aesthetic achievement to which he undoubtedly rose at certain moments of his career."
José Roberto Teixeira Leite
LEITE, José Roberto Teixeira. Dicionário crítico da pintura no Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: Artlivre, 1988.
Solo Exhibitions
1912 - São Paulo SP - First solo exhibition, at the Salão do Edifício do Radium, Rua São Bento
1918 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Rua da Quitanda, 4
1921 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Rua Líbero Badaró, 135
1922 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo
1923 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Rua Direita, 42a
1924 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Palacete Palmares
1924 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Rua 15 de Novembro, 39a
1926 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo
1926 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Blanchon
1926 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Rua Quitanda, 19b
1929 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Rua 15 de Novembro, 40
1931 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Casa Assunção
1933 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Rua São Bento, 48
1934 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Itá
1944 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Rua Barão de Itapetininga, 121
1946 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Benedetti
1948 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Itá
1949 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Itá
1951 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Itá
1953 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria de Arte Rio Branco
Group Exhibitions
1911 - São Paulo SP - First Brazilian Fine Arts Exhibition, at Liceu de Artes e Ofícios
1934 - São Paulo SP - 1st São Paulo Fine Arts Salon, at Rua 11 de Agosto
1937 - São Paulo SP - 5th São Paulo Fine Arts Salon - large silver medal and 1st São Paulo City Hall Prize
1939 - São Paulo SP - 6th São Paulo Fine Arts Salon - 2nd São Paulo City Hall Prize
1940 - São Paulo SP - 7th São Paulo Fine Arts Salon, at Salão de Arte Almeida Júnior da Prefeitura Municipal
1942 - Porto Alegre RS - Great Fine Arts Exhibition, at Instituto de Belas Artes do Rio Grande do Sul
1942 - São Paulo SP - 8th São Paulo Fine Arts Salon, at Galeria Prestes Maia
Posthumous Exhibitions
1953 - São Paulo SP - Posthumous tribute at the 18th São Paulo Fine Arts Salon, at Galeria Prestes Maia
1955 - São Paulo SP - Posthumous Exhibition, at Galeria Sete de Abril
1956 - São Paulo SP - 50 Years of Brazilian Landscape, at MAM/SP
1980 - São Paulo SP - The Brazilian Landscape: 1650-1976, at Paço das Artes
1983 - Campos do Jordão SP - Campos do Jordão Winter Festival, at the Auditorium
1985 - São Paulo SP - 100 Itaú Works, at Masp
1986 - São Paulo SP - Dezenovevinte: A Turn of the Century, at Pinacoteca do Estado
1989 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian Painting of the 19th and 20th Centuries: Works from the Banco Itaú Collection, at Itaugaleria
1990 - São Paulo SP - The Art Collection of the City of São Paulo, at Masp
1991 - São Paulo SP - São Paulo Images, at Paço das Artes
1993 - Santos SP - Six Great Painters, at Pinacoteca Benedito Calixto
1995 - Campinas SP - From Seascape to Still Life
2001 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian Landscapes, at Jô Slaviero Galeria de Arte
2003 - São Paulo SP - Painters of the São Paulo Coast, at Sociarte
Source: Itaú Cultural
