Henrique Bernardelli (Valparaíso, Chile 1858 - Rio de Janeiro RJ 1936)
Painter, draftsman, printmaker, teacher.
Brother of the sculptor Rodolfo Bernardelli (1852-1931) and of the violinist and painter Félix Bernardelli (1862-1905). He arrived in Brazil with his family in the early 1860s, settling in Rio Grande do Sul. In 1867, he moved to Rio de Janeiro. Three years later, he enrolled at the Academia Imperial de Belas Artes (Aiba) together with his brother Rodolfo. He studied under Zeferino da Costa (1840-1915), Agostinho da Motta (1824-1878) and Victor Meirelles (1832-1903). He traveled to Italy in 1878. In Rome, he attended the studio of Domenico Morelli (1826-1901), with whom he studied until 1886. He returned to Brazil that same year and held a solo exhibition in Rio de Janeiro that aroused interest and controversy in local circles. Works shown included Tarantela [Tarantella] (1886), Maternidade [Motherhood] (1878), Messalina (1880), Modelo em Repouso [Model at Rest] (ca. 1881) and Ao Meio Dia [At Midday].
He taught at the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes (Enba) from 1891 to 1905, when he declined to renew his contract, arguing that the institution needed to renew its staff periodically. With his brother, he began teaching in a private studio on Rua do Ouvidor in Rio de Janeiro, where students included Lucílio de Albuquerque (1877-1939), Georgina de Albuquerque (1885-1962), Eugênio Latour (1874-1942), Hélios Seelinger (1878-1965) and Arthur Timótheo da Costa (1882-1922).
In the 1890s, he produced important decorative works, such as the panels for the interior of the Theatro Municipal, the panels O Domínio do Homem sobre as Forças da Natureza [Man's Dominion over the Forces of Nature] and A Luta pela Liberdade [The Struggle for Freedom] for the Biblioteca Nacional, both in Rio de Janeiro, and works for the Museu Paulista in São Paulo. Particularly noteworthy are the 22 fresco medallions adorning the façade of the current building of the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes (MNBA), shown at the 1916 Enba Salon. In 1931, several painters dissatisfied with Enba's teaching model organized themselves collectively, creating a group devoted to technical improvement and the reform of art education, which they named Núcleo Bernardelli in honor of the teachers Henrique and Rodolfo.
Critiques
"Bernardelli was the first Brazilian painter to derive all the foundations of his artistic experience from the processes, technical habits and colors of the Italian painting practiced by many 19th-century artists (...). The sense of the primacy given to objectivity, without concessions to sentimentality, regardless of a subject that, in another painter, might give rise to psychological musings or vulgar mawkishness. Reflecting on themes was not his way. His experiences were reflected and unfolded in his sacred or profane paintings, in contact with the real model, without any great commitment to the transcendental in the first case or to sentimentality in the other. Bernardelli's psychological make-up and emotional formation were those of a man who gave primacy to matter. His consciousness and his art were committed only to the effects he accepted as reality. And a solid, well-structured reality, in whose service, as he painted, he did not use faint tonal effects, transparencies or light, easy reflections. He applied paint in full impasto with marked brushstrokes, most often following the movement of the forms depicted, thereby achieving an evident sense of volume".
Edson Motta e equipe do MNBA
Museu Nacional de Belas Artes. Apresentação Roberto Daniel Martins Parreira; texto Edson Motta. Rio de Janeiro: Funarte, 1979. 196 p. , il. color.
"(...) after eight years of study in Rome, Henrique Bernardelli (...) immediately made his mark, without arousing controversy over the work he brought back and the striking personality he displayed, except among a few more limited critics. These found strange the influences he brought from late-19th-century Italian painting (...). It was simply that Henrique Bernardelli escaped that semblance of the official art of Paris which, by setting the standard for everything that could be accepted as valid painting in our milieu, had come, through force of habit, to resemble a defining condition of national creativity. (...) What was most distinctive in the work brought back by the newly arrived young painter was the look of a painting that was new compared with what was known here. Not so much the difference between French and Italian academicism, but above all the artist's shedding of conservative technical and aesthetic concerns and his opening of a new vision for painting (...). In the canvases Henrique brought back, one soon notices much that was popular, a tendency to emphasize the naturalness of things and events - in short, a vision subordinate to the direct suggestions of nature, which demanded technical freedom and an ability to improvise in order to master new visual effects".
Quirino Campofiorito
CAMPOFIORITO, Quirino. História da pintura brasileira no século XIX. Prefácio Carlos Roberto Maciel Levy. Rio de Janeiro: Pinakotheke, 1983. 292 p. , il color
"Bernardelli is a robust young man endowed with all-round talent and, through heredity, with true artistic feeling. His works suggest a restless, nervous temperament, avid for impressions, one of those athletic constitutions with broad shoulders, a strong chest and muscles developed and strengthened by the healthy exercise of outdoor walks in the high mountains. His work is vigorous, original, full of warmth, full of daring. Full of daring! yes, because it is new, because it goes beyond the ruined systems of academic production, because it makes us feel the essential character of the object, in H. Taine's expression; because it moves us and is personal and true. Look at a painting by a master, any of 'our masters', and while the latter's work wins from our attention only an adjective, sometimes distilled by complacency, the former's work impresses us, awakens some new emotion in us, provokes admiration or hatred. Therein lies the artist's superiority".
Gonzaga Duque
DUQUE, Gonzaga. A arte brasileira. Introdução Tadeu Chiarelli. Campinas: Mercado de Letras, 1995. 270 p.
Solo Exhibitions
1886 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Enba
Group Exhibitions
1870 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 21st General Exhibition of Fine Arts, at Aiba
1884 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 26th General Exhibition of Fine Arts, at Aiba - first-class gold medal
1886 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Nicolau Facchinetti and Henrique Bernardelli, at Imprensa Nacional
1887 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Antônio Parreiras, Castagneto and Henrique Bernardelli, at Grêmio de Letras e Artes
1889 - Paris (France) - Exposition Universelle - bronze medal
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
1896 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 3rd General Exhibition of Fine Arts, at Enba
1897 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 4th General Exhibition of Fine Arts, at Enba
1898 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 5th General Exhibition of Fine Arts, at Enba
1900 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 7th General Exhibition of Fine Arts, at Enba
1901 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 8th General Exhibition of Fine Arts, at Enba
1902 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 9th General Exhibition of Fine Arts, at Enba
1903 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 10th General Exhibition of Fine Arts, at Enba
1904 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 11th General Exhibition of Fine Arts, at Enba
1905 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 12th General Exhibition of Fine Arts, at Enba
1907 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 14th General Exhibition of Fine Arts, at Enba
1909 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 16th General Exhibition of Fine Arts, at Enba
1910 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 17th General Exhibition of Fine Arts, at Enba
1911 - São Paulo SP - First Brazilian Fine Arts Exhibition, at Liceu de Artes e Ofícios
1916 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 23rd General Exhibition of Fine Arts, at Enba
1927 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 34th General Exhibition of Fine Arts, at Enba
1928 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 35th General Exhibition of Fine Arts, at Enba
1929 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 36th General Exhibition of Fine Arts, at Enba
1930 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 37th General Exhibition of Fine Arts, at Enba
1931 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Bernardelli Brothers Gallery, at MNBA
1931 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Revolutionary Salon, at Enba
1933 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 40th General Exhibition of Fine Arts, at Enba
1934 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 3rd Núcleo Bernardelli Salon, at Enba
1935 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 4th Núcleo Bernardelli Salon, at Enba
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
1970 - São Paulo SP - Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo 1970, at Pesp
1976 - São Paulo SP - Henrique Bernardelli: A Collection of Drawings, at Pesp
1976 - São Paulo SP - The Portrait in the Pinacoteca Collection, at Pinacoteca do Estado
1980 - São Paulo SP - The Brazilian Landscape: 1650-1976, at Paço das Artes
1984 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 7th National Visual Arts Salon - The 1931 Salon, at MNBA
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 Pesp
1986 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Henrique Bernardelli, at MNBA
1986 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Exhibition Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of His Death, at MNBA
1989 - Fortaleza CE - 19th- and 20th-Century Brazilian Art in Ceará Collections: Paintings and Drawings, at Espaço Cultural da Unifor
1991 - São Paulo SP - Desire in the Academy: 1847-1916, at Pesp
1994 - São Paulo SP - A Critical Look at the 19th-Century Collection, at Pesp
1995 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Caixa Econômica Federal Collection Exhibition, at Espaço Arte Barrashopping
2000 - São Paulo SP - Brasil + 500 Rediscovery Exhibition. 19th-Century Art, at Fundação Bienal
2000 - Porto Alegre RS - From Frans Post to Eliseu Visconti: Museu Nacional de Belas Artes-RJ Collection, at Margs
2001 - São Paulo SP - 30 Masters of Painting in Brazil, at Masp
2001 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazilian Watercolor, at Centro Cultural Light
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 - São Paulo SP - Image and Identity: A Look at History in the Museu de Belas Artes Collection, at Instituto Cultural Banco Santos
Source: Itaú Cultural
