Giovanni Battista Castagneto (Genoa, Italy 1851 - Rio de Janeiro RJ 1900)
Painter, draftsman, teacher.
Giovanni Battista Felice Castagneto worked as a sailor in Genoa. He came to Rio de Janeiro with his father in 1874. In 1878, he enrolled in the courses in figure drawing, geometric drawing and mathematics at the Academia Imperial de Belas Artes - Aiba, where he studied until 1884, with teachers including Zeferino da Costa (1840 - 1915) and Victor Meirelles (1832 - 1903). From 1882 to 1884, he studied under Georg Grimm (1846 - 1887) and, when Grimm broke with the Academy, followed him to set up his open-air studio on Boa Viagem beach in Niterói, becoming part of the Grimm Group. He taught drawing at the Liceu de Artes e Ofícios do Rio de Janeiro and at the Liceu de Niterói. He held his first solo exhibition in Rio de Janeiro, at Casa Vieitas, in 1886. He traveled to France in 1890, where he met the painter Frédéric Montenard (1849 - 1926), who advised him to study with the marine painter François Nardi (1861 - 1936). He returned to Brazil in 1893 and the following year opened a solo exhibition at the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes - Enba with works produced in Toulon, France. Regarded as an important painter of seascapes and coastal landscapes, the artist continued to refine this subject until reaching the maturity of his work, achieved through his experiences on the French coast. The seascapes produced in the last ten years of his life reveal the complete technical mastery evident in their balanced compositions, chromatic refinement and personal treatment of the pictorial surface.
Critical Commentary
Giovanni Battista Castagneto was born in Genoa and went to Rio de Janeiro in 1874. He entered the Academia Imperial de Belas Artes - Aiba in 1878, where he studied, among other subjects, landscape with Georg Grimm (1846 - 1887) from 1882 to 1884, the year Grimm left Aiba. From the outset, he turned to the depiction of nature, especially seascape painting. His first works already reveal the essential characteristics of his output: free brushwork, strong gesture and a tendency toward monochrome, as seen, for example, in Trapiche na Baía do Rio de Janeiro [Wharf on Rio de Janeiro Bay] (1883).
In 1884, he followed Grimm when he broke with Aiba and set up an open-air studio on Boa Viagem beach in Niterói. His admiration for Georg Grimm's work shows in his perception of landscape, choice of motifs, synthesis of elements and restricted palette, as in the painting Porto do Rio de Janeiro [Port of Rio de Janeiro] (1884). Castagneto was intensely active as a painter, producing numerous series of works that reveal the artist's study of nature and of the changes in the marine atmosphere. He frequently went to Niterói, where Grimm's students gathered, capturing aspects of the coast. He often painted Santa Luzia beach: the effects of light on the sea and the renovations of the church. He produced a series of seascapes of Angra dos Reis, with broad, aggressive brushstrokes, painted from life, in which greens and grays predominate.
The artist reveals a romantic sensibility through which he interprets nature. Thus, his depictions of the sea or of boats beached on the sand are charged with feeling. The pictorial handling is impulsive and almost violent; one sees the cutting brushstroke and the generous impasto. He depicts fishing vessels, simple canoes, which acquire dignity and grandeur, as in Canoa a Seco na Praia em Angra dos Reis [Beached Canoe in Angra dos Reis] (1886).
In 1887, he painted Uma Salva de Grande Gala na Baía do Rio de Janeiro [A Grand Gala Salute in Rio de Janeiro Bay], conceived according to the Academy's models, to compete for the travel prize. The rejection of the painting by Aiba and the criticism published in the newspapers caused the artist deep bitterness, and his output in the following years became irregular. He traveled to France in 1890 with the help of friends. There he came into contact with Frédéric Montenard (1849 - 1926), a traveling French painter with a particular fondness for marine subjects. Through him he met the Frenchman François Nardi (1861 - 1936), also a marine painter, with whom he lived for a time in Toulon. He concentrated on fishing scenes and the study of the marine atmosphere. His subjects are the brightly colored sailboats filling the coves near the town, as in Barco de Pesca Ancorado em Toulon [Fishing Boat Anchored in Toulon] (1892), or the effects of light on the water, as in Vista de Mourillon [View of Mourillon] (1892). During his stay in Toulon, Castagneto's palette diversified; he handled color more freely and his drawing became more structured. Compared with his earlier work, the French period represents a certain weakening of romantic power, through adaptation to the canons and the pursuit of greater control over pictorial values.
Back in Brazil, his artistic practice became consolidated. His works show a return to gestural brushwork, and the colors become subtler and very soft compared with the landscapes painted in Toulon. The rigorous drawing that marked the contours of forms breaks down, as can be seen in Trecho da Praia de São Roque em Paquetá [Stretch of São Roque Beach in Paquetá] (ca. 1898). Light colors, clear and transparent tones, gray-blues, nuances of yellow and aqua green predominate in his paintings. The original handling of the works and the highly personal treatment of the pictorial surface stand out: the impasto is often worked with a palette knife and, in places, even with the thumb. From 1896, the landscape of Paquetá Island became the preferred setting of his paintings.
Castagneto was described by his contemporaries as a man on the margins of society, a bohemian who rejected convention. The critic Gonzaga Duque (1863 - 1911) describes the painter as gentle and irascible, stating that "Like the sea, his temperament is rebellious" and "As an artist he feels, in a most original way, a way whose secret only he possesses, all the raptures, all the poetry of the waves".1 His painting combines gentleness and violence, joining a rapid, anguished execution with great lyricism.
Notes
1 DUQUE, Gonzaga. A arte brasileira. Campinas: Mercado de Letras, 1995, p. 198.
Critiques
"Unconcerned with drawing, like the French Impressionists, the painter seeks to capture light through painting, to fix the fleeting, with one favorite theme: light on water, at the seaside, almost always. In this work, forms dissolve in the misty light of the distance and, in the foreground, the various elements are composed as patches of color that he applies to the surface of the canvas. His paintings are generally small and, seen up close, give the impression of being daubed with color, at times applied to the canvas following a certain rhythm, at times showing a disorderly, even nervous script that betrays a rapid execution. (...) Perhaps owing to his fascination with the sea, his studio was a boat moving about Guanabara Bay, which he captured in many of its aspects".
Equipe da Pinacoteca do Estado
PINACOTECA do Estado de São Paulo. Rio de Janeiro: Funarte, 1982.
"It was in a task in which many drifted in the doldrums of sameness that Castagneto stood out and revealed the full extent of his creative power and his complete mastery of technique. But to achieve this, he drew on a broad, deep experience of life, knowing the sea as he did, as a whole and in its nuances. Castagneto nevertheless builds a conflictual unity between the sea and man, hence the variety of scenes we come to know as the events of his daily life emerge. And it is in this sense that we find an extraordinary spiritual richness, always present in the various works that make up his output".
Alcídio Mafra de Souza
LEVY, Carlos Roberto Maciel. Giovanni Battista Castagneto: 1851-1900: o pintor do mar. Rio de Janeiro: Pinakotheke, 1982.
"Over the course of 1896, the elements that would progressively and radically steer the life and work of Giovanni Battista Castagneto toward a structural process of simplification became consolidated. On the level of existence, his life had until then been a persistent succession of struggles marked by nonconformity and a libertarian temperament (...). He was a man on the margins of society, dissatisfied with the protocols it demanded and in revolt against the conventions it imposed. But before he could, in his naive and unschooled intellectual universe, establish the paradigms he wished to oppose and combat, he found himself flattered, loved and 'understood' by the ruling strata of that society, which discreetly projected onto him their own longings for independence. (...) The 19th century had ended and, with the 20th, an era of progress, revolutions and radical transformations in humanity's behavior, ideas and possibilities opened up. Castagneto died with the only period in history that could accommodate his romantic, open art; earlier, it would have been suppressed as a manifestation of madness; later, it would have been read as maudlin, reactionary simplism (...)".
Carlos Roberto Maciel Levy
LEVY, Carlos Roberto Maciel. Giovanni Battista Castagneto: 1851-1900: o pintor do mar. Rio de Janeiro: Pinakotheke, 1982.
"Castagneto (João Batista) is original. Son of an old sea dog, an old seafarer rocked by the waves of the Mediterranean and the Ionian, João Batista Castagneto was born an artist and born a sailor. He inherited from his father a love of the sea's mysterious inconstancy, and received from his beloved Italy the warm breath of artistic impressionability. Like the sea, his temperament is rebellious. He loves and hates. He is gentle and irascible. One day he decided that academic study, instead of helping him progress, was holding him back; and from one moment to the next he tore up the ties that bound him to the Academy. As an artist he feels, in a most original way, a way whose secret only he possesses, all the raptures, all the poetry of the waves. The stormy voice of the waters, the mad sobbing of the waves, the Cyclopean struggles of the ocean strike within him strange resonant chords of a sentimentality that nature has given to no one else. And, like the sea, his painting is strong and sweet, quick and slow, has roughness and caresses, seems transparent and seems compact, shines and darkens. (...)
When he lacks time to change brushes, he uses just one, dipping it into different paints, or he paints with his fingers, his nails, the palette knife, the first object at hand: a hard pebble, a stick, a piece of rope, a toothpick, the stem of his pipe, the tip of his cigarette.
(...) Now it is a seascape in a soft, light tonality, with a small boat in the center giving the whole a serene and happy charm. Now it is the beach hut covered with leprous tiles dislodged by the wind. Here is a subject captured at dusk. The sun slowly disappears from the sky; murky clouds, formed in broad, capricious masses, drift through the air; the horizon is tinged an intense, vivid orange; in the distance, bluish hills, lost in the silence of space, like the enormous walls of an invincible citadel. On the sea, in the warm reflection of the last rays of the sun, with sails open to the sudden breezes, bulging feluccas race along. There is a view of the war arsenal, taken from Santa Luzia beach. In the background, far, far away, the sea rolls its waves and comes tumultuous and restless to sprawl on the beach in a mournful, brutish stretch. The sun bathes nature. The roofs and whitewashed walls of the arsenal's workshops, lit by the smiling light, seem to spread across the picture a long laugh of strength before the sea that moans on the sand".
Gonzaga Duque
[Originally published in: DUQUE, Gonzaga. A Arte brasileira: pintura e esculptura. Rio de Janeiro: H. Lombaerts & C., 1888.]
DUQUE, Gonzaga. A arte brasileira. Campinas: Mercado de Letras, 1995. p. 198-200.
"He found the fusion of art and life, however, in seascape painting. The genre enjoyed a certain fortune in Brazil: Dom Pedro II loved seascapes and warships. Before Castagneto, however, the history of seascape painting in Brazil already included the meticulous naval modeling of Eduardo De Martino, present in the imperial collections, and the 'electric' seascapes of Émile Rouède, so called because they were painted quickly and often from memory. These certainly influenced the young Castagneto's technique. From them he drew his love of a quick, synthetic technique and of improvised supports - cardboard, the bottoms of cigar boxes, plates, palettes and even, in one case, a dried cod skin. The memory of De Martino is also present in the painter's only ambitious attempt at a large historical seascape, Salva na Baía de Guanabara em Homenagem a Dom Pedro II [Salute in Guanabara Bay in Honor of Dom Pedro II], now in the Museu de Arte de São Paulo, Masp, painted to win the Academy's travel prize in 1887.
It was the artist's greatest disappointment, as he was not at all suited to this kind of celebration. Castagneto's painting needed other subjects: 'All the artist's attention converged on the humble life of the fishermen, on the poor corners of the seashore where the landscape, had it lacked the presence of fishing folk to convey the poetry of their obscure existence, could still recall it through the closeness of the land'.
For Castagneto, the painter of the sea, the sea was a state of mind and painting a way of life. He lived on Santa Luzia beach, in a house that looked like a boat. Any object would serve him to capture the memory of a stretch of beach or to copy a subject. He would seize the subject with the feverish stroke of his hand and with great economy of means, until transfiguring it into a simplified, rapid image, so as not to lose the force of the sensation.
In places, one can see the violence of the gesture, the use of improvised instruments and even the thumb, in the manner of sculptors. Castagneto's beached boats transcend the limits of genre, often reaching the realm of lyrical expression, as in the hieroglyph-hulls of De Fiori and Volpi, or in Pancetti's dazzling sands.
Finally, he managed to travel to the south of France, where he studied with a then-famous marine painter, François Nardi. He returned drunk with light. He captured it in paintings such as O Forte de Gragoatá [The Gragoatá Fort], in the MNBA, but, confused and ill, an early death came to haul him out of the undertow".
Luciano Migliaccio
MOSTRA DO REDESCOBRIMENTO, 2000, São Paulo. Arte do século XIX. São Paulo: Fundação Bienal de São Paulo: Associação Brasil 500 anos Artes Visuais, 2000. p. 129-130.
Collections
Acervo Instituto Itaú Cultural (São Paulo SP)
Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (São Paulo SP)
Museu Histórico Nacional (Rio de Janeiro RJ)
Museu Nacional de Belas Artes - MNBA (Rio de Janeiro RJ)
Solo Exhibitions
1886 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Casa Vieitas
1887 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Glace Elégante
1887 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Casa Vieitas
1888 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Glace Elégante
1889 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Glace Elégante
1890 - Juiz de Fora MG - Solo, at the offices of the newspaper O Farol
1890 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, in the hall of the newspaper O Paiz
1894 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Enba
1895 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Salão de Concertos da Paulicéia
1895 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Banco União
1896 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Exhibition, at Papelaria Gomes
1897 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Exhibition, at Papelaria Gomes
Group Exhibitions
1884 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 26th General Exhibition of Fine Arts, at Aiba - gold medal
1885 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Loja Laurent de Wilde: Opening Show, at Loja de Laurent de Wilde
1885 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Castagneto and França Júnior, at Casa Vieitas (Rio de Janeiro, RJ)
1887 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Antônio Parreiras, Castagneto and Henrique Bernardelli, at Grêmio de Letras e Artes
1890 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - General Exhibition of Fine Arts, at Enba
1894 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1st General Exhibition of Fine Arts, at Enba
1895 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 2nd General Exhibition of Fine Arts, at Enba
1898 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Retrospective Art Exhibition, at Centro Artístico
Posthumous Exhibitions
1948 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Retrospective of Painting in Brazil, at MNBA
1950 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - A Century of Brazilian Painting: 1850-1950, at MNBA
1953 - São Paulo SP - 2nd Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Pavilhão dos Estados
1961 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Rio in Brazilian Painting, at Biblioteca Estadual da Guanabara
1963 - Asunción (Paraguay) - La Pintura en el Brasil
1970 - São Paulo SP - Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo 1970, at Pinacoteca do Estado
1974 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - The Sea, at Galeria Ibeu Copacabana
1977 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Aspects of the Brazilian Landscape: 1816-1916, at MNBA
1978 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Sociarte
1980 - Buenos Aires (Argentina) - Ochenta Años de Arte Brasileño, at Banco Itaú
1980 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - The Grimm Group: Brazilian Landscape Painting in the 19th Century, at Acervo Galeria de Arte
1980 - São Paulo SP - The Brazilian Landscape: 1650-1976, at Paço das Artes
1982 - Bauru SP - 80 Years of Brazilian Art
1982 - Marília SP - 80 Years of Brazilian Art
1982 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Giovanni Battista Castagneto 1851-1900: The Painter of the Sea, at Acervo Galeria de Arte
1982 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Painters from Rio de Janeiro State, at MAM/RJ
1982 - São Paulo SP - 80 Years of Brazilian Art, at MAB/Faap
1982 - São Paulo SP - Italian Painters in Brazil, at MAM/SP
1983 - Belo Horizonte MG - 80 Years of Brazilian Art, at Fundação Clóvis Salgado. Palácio das Artes
1983 - Campinas SP - 80 Years of Brazilian Art, at MACC
1983 - Curitiba PR - 80 Years of Brazilian Art, at MAC/PR
1983 - Ribeirão Preto SP - 80 Years of Brazilian Art
1983 - Santo André SP - 80 Years of Brazilian Art, at Prefeitura Municipal de Santo André
1984 - São Paulo SP - Tradition and Rupture: A Synthesis of Brazilian Art and Culture, at Fundação Bienal
1985 - São Paulo SP - 100 Itaú Works, at Masp
1986 - São Paulo SP - Dezenovevinte: A Turn of the Century, at Pinacoteca do Estado
1987 - São Paulo SP - Brazil Painted by Brazilian and Foreign Masters: 18th - 20th Centuries, at Masp
1988 - São Paulo SP - Brasiliana: Man and the Land, at Pinacoteca do Estado
1989 - Fortaleza CE - 19th- and 20th-Century Brazilian Art in Ceará Collections: Paintings and Drawings, at Espaço Cultural da Unifor
1989 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - The Rio de Janeiro of Machado de Assis, at CCBB
1989 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian Painting of the 19th and 20th Centuries: Works from the Banco Itaú Collection, at Itaugaleria
1992 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Nature: Four Centuries of Art in Brazil, at CCBB
1993 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazil, 100 Years of Modern Art, at MNBA
1993 - Santos SP - Six Great Painters, at Pinacoteca Benedito Calixto
1994 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Iconography of the Landscape
1994 - São Paulo SP - A Critical Look at the 19th-Century Collection, at Pinacoteca do Estado
1995 - Campinas SP - From Seascape to Still Life
1997 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Giovanni Battista Castagneto: 1851-1900, at Pinakotheke
1998 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Seascapes in Major São Paulo Collections, at Espaço Cultural da Marinha
2000 - Porto Alegre RS - From Frans Post to Eliseu Visconti: Museu Nacional de Belas Artes - RJ Collection, at Margs
2000 - São Paulo SP - 51st São Paulo Fine Arts Salon, at Assembleia Legislativa do Estado de São Paulo - honoree
2000 - São Paulo SP - Brasil + 500 Rediscovery Exhibition, at Fundação Bienal
2001 - São Paulo SP - 30 Masters of Painting in Brazil, at Masp
2001 - São Paulo SP - Aldo Franco Collection, at Pinacoteca do Estado
2001 - São Paulo SP - Museu de Arte Brasileira: 40 Years, at MAB/Faap
2001 - São Paulo SP - Trajectory of Light in Brazilian Art, at Itaú Cultural
2002 - Brasília DF - Barão do Rio Branco: His Work and His Time, at Ministério das Relações Exteriores. Palácio do Itamaraty
2002 - Niterói RJ - Brazilian Art on Paper: 19th and 20th Centuries, at Solar do Jambeiro
2002 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazilian Art in the Fadel Collection: From the Restlessness of the Modern to the Autonomy of Language, at CCBB
2002 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian Art in the Fadel Collection: From the Restlessness of the Modern to the Autonomy of Language, at CCBB
2002 - São Paulo SP - Image and Identity: A Look at History in the Museu de Belas Artes Collection, at Instituto Cultural Banco Santos
2003 - Brasília DF - Brazilian Art in the Fadel Collection: From the Restlessness of the Modern to the Autonomy of Language, at CCBB
Source: Itaú Cultural
