Firmino Monteiro (Rio de Janeiro RJ 1855 - Niterói RJ 1888)
Pintor and typographer.
Black artist, of modest origin, Antônio Firmino Monteiro exercised initially the bindings of bookbinder and clerk. In the 1870s, in Rio de Janeiro, he frequented the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts - Aiba, where he studied with Zeferino da Costa (1840 - 1915), Victor Meirelles (1832 - 1903), Agostinho da Motta (1824 - 1878) and Pádua Castro. He carries out his first studies in Europe, where he travels, with the help of Emperor Dom Pedro II (1825 - 1891), in 1880. At the 26th General Exhibition of Fine Arts of Aiba, in 1884, he exhibits 18 landscapes and five Historical paintings, by which he receives the title of Knight of the Imperial Order of the Rose, conferred by the Emperor. Between 1885 and 1887, he made new study trips to Europe, with a longer stay in Paris. Upon returning, he teaches painting at the School of Fine Arts of Bahia, and Perspective and Theory of the Shadow at the Liceu de Artes e Ofícios da Bahia, in Salvador, where he remains for a brief period. He performs compositions of historical and religious themes, genre paintings and landscapes. As noted by the scholar Laudelino Freire (1873 - 1937), Firmino Monteiro, as well as the painter Rodolfo Amoedo (1857 - 1941), reveals an interest in technical issues of painting, such as, for example, the chemistry of Pigments.
Critical Comment
As the art historian Laudelino Freire notes, Firmino Monteiro has great interest in the technical problems of the painting, carefully studying the color palette to be used in his paintings, in order to avoid future changes.
It is initially dedicated to the landscape, presenting screens of careful invoice, such as landscape of Niterói (s.d.) and Cascata do Itamarati (s.d.). According to art critic Gonzaga Duque, his small paintings of this genre are carried out with a melancholy feeling, some of which are of a passionate and nostalgic softness, others drier and rugged, but always expressing a certain sadness.
Firmino Monteiro He is also dedicated to painting history, after the success of the foundation of the city of Rio de Janeiro (s.d.). In his production, among others, the Anchieta paintings writes the poem à Virgo (s.d.), an episode of the withdrawal of the laguna (s.d.), exequias de Camorim (ca.1879) and Camões in his deathbed (n.d). The artist also performs religious and gender painting.
Despite the quality of his work, Firmino Monteiro does not receive the award for travel abroad as a student at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts - AIBA.
Critiques
"Artified to life at an age when, not having yet reached the degree of development to which his intelligence and devoted love of art were assured, he still had to do much to become a great artist. (...) What he managed to do, However, if you do not assign a place among the masters, it is however enough to give you a good classification among the painters of your time. (...) to feel in all his passions one of melancholy, softness and feeling, that something else were nothing but instinctive traces of his psychology, always anointed with ingenious sadness. possible and even right in some if we encounter traces of hardness, drawing deficiencies and other defects, but what Nellas has always achieved was the artist's prism through the prism of great feeling".
Laudelino Freire
FREIRE, Laudelino. A century of painting: notes for the history of painting in Brazil: from 1816-1916. Rio de Janeiro: Fontana, 1983, p. 292.
"The first feature for which Monteiro began to be considered was by the that of a paizagist. His small insights, made with a finely melancholy feeling, some of a passionate and nostalgic softness; others Asperas, Seccas, won by Soaleira in December, but always participating in a certain sadness whose origin was in the artist himself; they gave him, in the new generation of painters, to a deserved place. greater comrascence than justice, he transposed him from the path followed, to illuminate him with the resounding successes of historical painting. The early undertaking of works in this difficult genre, could never guarantee him results. like those who were harvested. I recognize, as everyone recognizes, in Monteiro, a promising intelligence. When he arrives at Balisa dos Quarent'annos, and more fed to know his spirit is, he will laugh, wiping the belly of tears, for the unoccultable contentment with which the glorification of his works will fill his chest".
Gonzaga Duque
Duque, Gonzaga. Brazilian Art: Painting and Sculpture. Rio de Janeiro: S. Ed. , 1888.
Collective 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 - exhibits 3 paintings at Teatro São João
Exhibitions Posthumous
1948 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Retrospective of painting in Brazil, at MNBA
1953 - São Paulo SP - 2nd São Paulo International Biennial, in the State Pavilion
1979 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazilian and European 19th century paintings, at Mauricio Pontual Art Gallery
1980 - São Paulo SP - The Brazilian landscape : 1650-1976, at Paço das Artes
1984 - São Paulo SP - Tradition and rupture: synthesis of Brazilian art and culture, at the Fundação Bienal
1986 - São Paulo SP - Nineteenth: a turn in the century, at the Pinacoteca do Estado
1988 - São Paulo SP - A Mão Afro-Brazilian, at MAM/SP
1993 - São Paulo SP - 19th century black painters, at the Pinacoteca do Estado
2000 - São Paulo SP - Brazil + 500 Rediscovery Exhibition, at the Fundação Bienal
Source: Itaú Cultural
