Firmino Monteiro (Rio de Janeiro RJ 1855 - Niterói RJ 1888)
Painter and typographer.
A Black artist of modest origins, Antônio Firmino Monteiro first worked as a bookbinder and shop clerk. In the 1870s, in Rio de Janeiro, he attended the Academia Imperial de Belas Artes - Aiba [Imperial Academy of Fine Arts], where he studied with Zeferino da Costa (1840 - 1915), Victor Meirelles (1832 - 1903), Agostinho da Motta (1824 - 1878) and Pádua Castro. He undertook his first studies in Europe, where he traveled with the help of Emperor Dom Pedro II (1825 - 1891), in 1880. At the Aiba's 26th Exposição Geral de Belas Artes [General Exhibition of Fine Arts], in 1884, he showed 18 landscapes and five history paintings, for which he received the title of Knight of the Imperial Order of the Rose, conferred by the emperor. Between 1885 and 1887, he made further study trips to Europe, with a longer stay in Paris. On his return, he taught painting at the Escola de Belas Artes da Bahia, and perspective and the theory of shadows at the Liceu de Artes e Ofícios da Bahia, in Salvador, where he stayed only briefly. He produced historical and religious compositions, genre paintings and landscapes. As the scholar Laudelino Freire (1873 - 1937) notes, Firmino Monteiro, like the painter Rodolfo Amoedo (1857 - 1941), showed an interest in technical questions of painting, such as the chemistry of pigments.
Critical Commentary
As the art historian Laudelino Freire notes, Firmino Monteiro showed great interest in the technical problems of painting, carefully studying the color palette to be used in his pictures in order to avoid future alterations.
He devoted himself first to landscape, presenting carefully executed canvases such as Paisagem de Niterói [Landscape of Niterói] (n.d.) and Cascata do Itamarati [Itamarati Waterfall] (n.d.). According to the art critic Gonzaga Duque, his small paintings in this genre were made with a melancholy feeling, some with a passionate, wistful softness, others drier and harsher, but always expressing a certain sadness.
Firmino Monteiro also devoted himself to history painting after the success of Fundação da Cidade do Rio de Janeiro [Founding of the City of Rio de Janeiro] (n.d.). His output includes, among others, the pictures Anchieta Escreve sobre a Areia o Poema à Virgem [Anchieta Writes the Poem to the Virgin in the Sand] (n.d.), Um Episódio da Retirada da Laguna [An Episode of the Laguna Retreat] (n.d.), Exéquias de Camorim [Funeral Rites of Camorim] (ca.1879) and Camões em seu Leito de Morte [Camões on His Deathbed] (n.d.). The artist also produced religious and genre painting.
Despite the quality of his work, Firmino Monteiro never received the foreign travel prize while a student at the Academia Imperial de Belas Artes - Aiba.
Critiques
"Snatched from life at an age when, not yet having reached the degree of development that his intelligence and devoted love of art assured him, he still had much to do to become a great artist. (...) What he did manage to achieve, however, if it does not earn him a place among the masters, is nonetheless enough to give him a good standing among the painters of his time. (...) Despite the academic tones that clothed his palette in the first phase, one could not help sensing in all his landscapes a touch of melancholy, softness and feeling, which were nothing other than instinctive traits of his psychology, always anointed with an innate sadness. In most, if not all, of his landscapes it is possible, and in some even certain, that we come across traces of stiffness, flaws in drawing and other defects, but what the artist always achieved in them was to render the truth through the prism of great feeling".
Laudelino Freire
FREIRE, Laudelino. Um século de pintura: apontamentos para a história da pintura no Brasil: de 1816-1916. Rio de Janeiro: Fontana, 1983, p. 292.
"The first aspect for which Monteiro began to be noticed was as a landscape painter. His small landscapes, made with a finely melancholy feeling, some of a passionate, wistful softness, others harsh and dry, overcome by the December sun, but always sharing a certain sadness whose origin lay in the artist himself, earned him a deserved place in the new generation of painters. 'The Founding of the City of S. Sebastião', praised with more indulgence than justice, led him astray from the path he had been following, to beguile him with the resounding successes of history painting. Undertaking works in this difficult genre prematurely could never guarantee him results equal to those he had reaped. The figures in his new history paintings, far inferior to those of the canvas mentioned above, proved that the artist lacked one of the main qualities required of a history painter - a thorough study of the human body. (...) I recognize, as everyone does, a promising intelligence in Monteiro. When he reaches the milestone of forty, and his spirit is better nourished with knowledge, he will laugh, wiping the tremor of tears, with the unconcealable contentment with which the glorification of his works will fill his breast".
Gonzaga Duque
DUQUE, Gonzaga. A arte brasileira: pintura e esculptura. Rio de Janeiro: s. ed. , 1888.
Group Exhibitions
1879 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 25th General Exhibition of Fine Arts, at Aiba - 2nd gold medal
1884 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 26th General Exhibition of Fine Arts, at Aiba
1887 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - General Exhibition of Fine Arts, at Aiba
ca.1887 - Salvador BA - Shows 3 paintings at Teatro São João
Posthumous Exhibitions
1948 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Retrospective of Painting in Brazil, at MNBA
1953 - São Paulo SP - 2nd São Paulo International Biennial, at Pavilhão dos Estados
1979 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Nineteenth-Century Brazilian and European Paintings, at Maurício Pontual Galeria de Arte
1980 - São Paulo SP - The Brazilian Landscape: 1650-1976, at Paço das Artes
1984 - São Paulo SP - Tradition and Rupture: A Synthesis of Brazilian Art and Culture, at Fundação Bienal
1986 - São Paulo SP - Dezenovevinte: A Turn of the Century, at Pinacoteca do Estado
1988 - São Paulo SP - 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 - São Paulo SP - Brasil + 500 Rediscovery Exhibition, at Fundação Bienal
Source: Itaú Cultural
