Clodomiro Amazonas (Taubaté SP 1883 - São Paulo SP 1953)
Clodomiro Amazonas was a painter and restorer. He starts painting at the age of 16, carrying out restorations on canvases and frescoes at the Santa Clara Convent, in Taubaté. He studies with the painter Augusto Luís de Freitas (1868 - 1962) at the end of the 1890s. Interested in promoting cultural activities, he founded the Artistic and Literary Association in the city in 1905. He started to live in São Paulo in 1906, when he came into contact with the work of Baptista da Costa (1865 - 1926) and has classes with the painter Carlo de Servi (1871 - 1947). In parallel with artistic activities, he works in public offices and works as an illustrator for publications such as Revista da Semana. From 1924 onwards, he dedicated himself exclusively to painting. maintains contact with intellectuals, writers and artists such as Monteiro Lobato (1882 - 1948), Menotti del Picchia (1892 - 1988), Lucílio de Albuquerque (1877 - 1939) and 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 mainly a painter of landscapes in São Paulo, using oil, watercolor, charcoal and pastel. Clodomiro Amazonas works as a restorer and later dedicates himself to the illustration of several publications, such as Revista da Semana. becomes an essentially landscape painter. Its screens are known for the views of closed forests, streams and hills with colorful trees in the interior of São Paulo, such as on a path with Jacaranda de Paulista (1935). It remains apart from the innovations of the modernist movement, remaining faithful to a more traditional invoice. Its production allows the approach to the painting of Baptista da Costa (1865 - 1926), by the way of representing nature and the harmonious palette.
The works of the beginning of Clodomiro Amazonas' career present smooth brushstrokes and compositions. more detailed. Afterwards, he makes an invoice with wider brushstrokes, also using the spatula. As noted by art historian Ruth Tarasantchi, the artist works with sketches in the places, then transfers them to the canvas, in the studio; Other times, he uses records of photographs, taken by himself, and postcards, as in a stretch of Itapuca beach, in Niterói. The same procedures and themes are employed by other artists, such as Wasth Rodrigues (1891 - 1957) and Oscar Pereira da Silva (1867 - 1939).
Considered by critics in his time as the "true painter" Brazilians",1 Clodomiro Amazonas creates poetic landscapes, in which specimens of Brazilian flora stand out, such as ipês, quaresmeiras and embaúbas, with broad perspectives and a palette of luminous tones.
Notes
1 Quoted in Tarasantchi, Ruth Sprung. Landscape Painters: São Paulo 1890 to 1920. São Paulo: Edusp; Official State Press, 2002, p. 254.
Criticism
"Essentially landscape designer, C. Amazonas was an artist of merits, whose painting, leaked in a drawing of great solidity and in a realistic color, does not fail to radiate certain rustic poetry. Nature, which portrayed more than it interpreted, was its greatest point of reference, its goal, but also its limit. And even more so, that 30 years after the Modern Art Week of 1922; however, one cannot deny sincerity, nor fail to recognize the high level of craftsmanship and even aesthetic that in some moments of his career he undoubtedly ascended."
José Roberto Teixeira Leite
LEITE, José Roberto Teixeira. Critical Dictionary of Painting in Brazil. Rio de Janeiro: ArtLivre, 1988.
Individual exhibitions
1912 - São Paulo SP - First individual, in the hall of the Radium building, at Rua São Bento
1918 - São Paulo SP - individual, at Rua da Quitanda, 4
1921 - São Paulo SP - Individual, at Rua Líbero Badaró, 135
1922 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Individual
1923 - São Paulo SP - Individual, Rua Direita, 42a
1924 - São Paulo SP - Individual, at Palacete Palmares
1924 - São Paulo SP - Individual, at Rua 15 de Novembro, 39a
1926 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Individual
1926 - São Paulo SP - Individual, at Galeria Blanchon
1926 - São Paulo SP - Individual, at Rua Quitanda, 19B
1929 - São Paulo SP - Individual, at Rua 15 de Novembro, 40
1931 - São Paulo SP - Individual, at Casa Assunção
1933 - São Paulo SP - Individual, at Rua São Bento, 48
1934 - São Paulo SP - Individual, at Galeria Itá
1944 - São Paulo SP - Individual, at Rua Barão de Itapetininga, 121
1946 - São Paulo SP - Individual, at the Benedetti Gallery
1948 - São Paulo SP - Individual, at Galeria Itá
1949 - São Paulo SP - Individual, at Galeria Itá
1951 - São Paulo SP - Individual, at Galeria Itá
1953 - São Paulo SP - Individual, at the Rio Branco Art Gallery
Collective exhibitions
1911 - São Paulo SP - First Brazilian Exhibition of Fine Arts, at the Liceu de Artes e Ofícios
1934 - São Paulo SP - 1st Paulista Salon of Fine Arts, at Rua 11 de Agosto
1937 - São Paulo SP - 5th Salão Paulista de Belas Artes - Grand Silver Medal and 1st São Paulo City Hall Award
1939 - São Paulo SP - 6th São Paulo Salon of Fine Arts - 2nd São Paulo City Hall Award
1940 - São Paulo SP - 7th Salon Paulista de Fine Arts, at the Salão de Arte Almeida Júnior of the City Hall
1942 - Porto Alegre RS - Grand Exhibition of Fine Arts, at the Institute of Fine Arts of Rio Grande do Sul
1942 - São Paulo SP - 8th Salão Paulista de Belas Artes, Prestes Maia Gallery
Posthumous exhibitions
1953 - São Paulo SP - Receives posthumous tribute at the 18th Salão Paulista de Belas Artes, at Galeria Prestes Maia
1955 - São Paulo SP - Exhibition Posthumous, at Galeria Sete de Abril
1956 - São Paulo SP - 50 years of the 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, in the auditorium
1985 - São Paulo SP - 100 works Itaú, at Masp
1986 - São Paulo SP - nineteenth: A turn in the century, at the Pinacoteca do Estado
1989 - São Paulo SP - Painting Brazil 19th and 20th Century: Works from the collection of Banco Itaú, in Itaugaleira
1990 - São Paulo SP - The Art Collection of the Municipality of São Paulo, at MASP
1991 - São Paulo SP - Images from São Paulo, at Paço das Artes
1993 - Santos SP - Six great painters, at Pinacoteca Benedito Calixto
1995 - Campinas SP - DA Navy to Still Life
2001 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian Landscapes, at Jo Slaviero Galeria de Arte
2003 - São Paulo SP - Painters on the coast of São Paulo, at Sociarte
Source: Itaú Cultural
