Estêvão Silva (Rio de Janeiro RJ ca.1844 - idem 1891)
Estêvão Roberto da Silva was a painter and teacher. He entered the Academia Imperial de Belas Artes - Aiba (Imperial Academy of Fine Arts) in 1864, where he studied with Victor Meirelles (1832 - 1903), Agostinho da Motta (1824 - 1878) and Jules Le Chevrel (1810 - 1872). He took part in the General Exhibitions of Fine Arts from 1872 onward, winning a silver medal in 1879 and a gold medal in 1884.
In 1879, during the award ceremony of the General Exhibition of Fine Arts, he publicly protested, before Emperor Pedro II, against a decision he considered unfair, and was punished with a one-year suspension of his studies at the Aiba.1 He taught drawing at the Liceu de Artes e Ofícios in Rio de Janeiro and devoted himself above all to still-life painting, a genre in which he became one of the leading names of 19th-century Brazil.
Critical Commentary
Estêvão Silva was the first prominent Black painter trained at the Academia Imperial de Belas Artes - Aiba and, as several scholars point out, can be considered one of the finest still-life painters of the 19th century. His interest in the genre was probably sparked by his studies with Agostinho da Motta (1824 - 1878) at the Aiba. Silva painted mainly fruit, as in Grumixamas e Jaboticabas [Grumixamas and Jabuticabas], n.d., Araçás [Araçás], 1870, and Natureza-Morta [Still Life], 1884.
The critic Gonzaga Duque (1863 - 1911) highlights the quality of the artist's compositions, painted with a profusion of reds, yellows and greens, in which he manages to give the representation an appearance of fidelity, transferring to the canvas everything he sees and feels in nature. To Duque, it seems almost impossible "to paint fruit better than Estêvão has painted it. His peaches are, in form, in color, in the soft golden down that covers them, true peaches".2
In the 1880s, Estêvão Silva associated with the members of the Grimm Group, without ever breaking his ties with the Aiba. The artist also painted some portraits, such as that of the painter Castagneto (1851 - 1900), in 1880, and compositions on historical and religious themes, such as S. Pedro [Saint Peter], n.d., A Caridade [Charity], n.d., and a sketch for the painting A Lei de 28 de Setembro [The Law of September 28], n.d.
Notes
1 The incident is reported in detail by the art critic Laudelino Freire (1873 - 1937) and also in the autobiography of Antônio Parreiras. See: FREIRE, Laudelino. Um século de pintura: apontamentos para a história da pintura no Brasil: de 1816-1916. Rio de Janeiro: Fontana, 1983; PARREIRAS, Antônio. História de um pintor contada por ele mesmo: Brasil - França: 1881-1936. Introduction by Athayde Parreiras. Niterói: Diário Oficial, 1943.
2 DUQUE, Gonzaga. A arte brasileira. Campinas: Mercado de Letras, 1995. (Coleção Arte: Ensaios e Documentos). p. 219.
Critiques
"There is fidelity, there is reality, and when the artist manages to deceive us perfectly, when he manages to transfer to the canvas what he sees and feels in nature, he has achieved everything. There is, however, a small flaw in his skill - the way he handles shadows. Estêvão renders them heavily, emphasizing, as is done at the Academy, the projection of bodies. This gives a certain heaviness to the tonality. The same defect, though less pronounced, can be seen in the landscapes and seascapes painted by Estêvão Silva".
Francisco Acquarone and A. de Queiroz Vieira
PRIMORES da pintura no Brasil. Francisco Acquarone; A. de Queiroz Vieira. 2nd ed. Rio de Janeiro, s. ed., 1942.
"He excelled in fruit painting, earning the following assessment from the critics of the time: 'It is truly difficult, and it even seems impossible, to paint fruit better than Estêvão has painted it' (...) He had a restless and turbulent temperament. Once, in the middle of an award ceremony at the Academy, he stood up and complained to Pedro II, who was present, that he had been the victim of an injustice by not being awarded a prize. The committee appointed to investigate the incident, after hearing him, punished him with a one-year suspension of his studies".
Carlos Cavalcanti and Walmir Ayala
CAVALCANTI, Carlos; AYALA, Walmir, org. Dicionário brasileiro de artistas plásticos. Introduction by Maria Alice Barroso. Brasília: MEC/INL, 1973-1980. (Dicionários especializados, 5).
Collections
Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo Collection (São Paulo SP)
Museu Mariano Procópio (Juiz de Fora MG)
Museu Nacional de Belas Artes - MNBA (Rio de Janeiro RJ)
Group Exhibitions
1872 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 22nd General Exhibition of Fine Arts, at Aiba
1876 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 24th General Exhibition of Fine Arts, at Aiba
1879 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 25th General Exhibition of Fine Arts, at Aiba - silver medal
1882 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1st Exhibition Organized by the Sociedade Propagadora das Belas Artes, at the Sociedade Propagadora das Belas Artes
1884 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 26th General Exhibition of Fine Arts, at Aiba - gold medal, 2nd class
1890 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - General Exhibition of Fine Arts, at Enba - acquisition prize
Posthumous Exhibitions
1950 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Um Século da Pintura Brasileira: 1850-1950 [A Century of Brazilian Painting: 1850-1950], at MNBA
1979 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Quadros Oitocentistas Brasileiros e Europeus [19th-Century Brazilian and European Paintings], at Mauricio Pontual Galeria de Arte
1983 - São Paulo SP - História da Pintura Brasileira no Século XIX [History of Brazilian Painting in the 19th Century], at Paço das Artes
1986 - São Paulo SP - Mostra Dezenovevinte: uma Virada no Século [Nineteen-Twenty: A Turn of the Century], at Pinacoteca do Estado
1988 - São Paulo SP - A Mão Afro-Brasileira [The Afro-Brazilian Hand], at MAM/SP
1993 - São Paulo SP - Pintores Negros do Século XIX [Black Painters of the 19th Century], at Pinacoteca do Estado
2000 - Porto Alegre RS - De Frans Post a Eliseu Visconti: Acervo Museu Nacional de Belas Artes - RJ [From Frans Post to Eliseu Visconti: Collection of the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes - RJ], at Margs
2000 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brasil + 500 Mostra do Redescobrimento. Negro de Corpo e Alma [Black in Body and Soul], at Fundação Casa França-Brasil
2002 - São Paulo SP - Imagem e Identidade: um Olhar sobre a História na Coleção do Museu de Belas Artes [Image and Identity: A Look at History in the Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts], at Instituto Cultural Banco Santos
Source: Itaú Cultural
