Jesuíno do Monte Carmelo (Santos SP 1764 - Itu SP 1819)
Pinter, architect, sculptor, incarnator, gilt, carver, master in torêutica, Musician, poet.
Mulato, son of Antônio Gueraldo Jácome and Domingas Inácia de Gusmão, niece of the Brazilian Jesuit priest Bartolomeu Lourenço de Gusmão, known as Padre Voador. In 1781, Jesuíno Francisco de Paula Gusmão moved to Itu and lives among local religious. In the construction of the Igreja Matriz Nossa Senhora da Candelária, he works as an assistant to the painter José Patrício da Silva Manso, with whom he becomes an assistant and disciple. In the city of São Paulo, in 1796, he paints the lining of the nave of the Church of the Third Order of Nossa Senhora do Carmo and the panels of the former Convent of Santa Teresa, which currently make up the collection of the Museum of Sacred Art. When widowed, after a brief marriage life, which begat him five children, he entered the religious life. He was ordained Father Carmelita in 1797, and adopted the name of Friar Jesuíno do Monte Carmelo. He prays his first mass the following year. In Itu, it carries out the ceilings of the chancel and the nave of the Church and Convent of Nossa Senhora do Carmo, around 1784, and the side panels of the chancel of the Mother Church of Nossa Senhora da Candelária, dating from the end of the 18th century. Between 1815 and 1819, he directed the construction of the Church and Convent of Nossa Senhora do Patrocínio, simultaneously performing the tasks of architect, master builder, painter and sculptor. He also performs eight paintings for the church and composes sacred music for its inauguration. He dies before finishing the work, which is completed by his children and inaugurated in 1820. In 1945, the book by Father Jesuíno do Monte Carmelo de Mário de Andrade is published by the National Historic and Artistic Heritage Service - SPHAN, in São Paulo, in São Paulo. (1893 - 1945).
Critical Comment
Frei Jesuíno do Monte Carmelo is recognized as one of the main artists of the colonial period in São Paulo. From his work as a composer of sacred songs, organ builder, carver and architect, only the painting works carried out in the cities of São Paulo and Itu remain. A mulatto and of humble origins, Jesuit has two inclinations as a child: the priesthood and the painting. Not being possible to learn the Latin necessary to ordain a priest, and faced with the need to work from an early age, he turns to the craft of a painter. Its formation is due to the observation of the few decorations of churches existing at the time in their hometown, especially the temple of the Carmelita de Santos Convent. A devotee of Our Lady of Carmo since childhood, the Carmelite friars have played a fundamental role in their lives. The priest-master initiates him in the music and technique of the organ. It also comes from the Carmelites its first important order: upholstering and embodying the carved images of wood from Nossa Senhora da Conceição, Sant'Ana and São Joaquim. Despite the poor quality of the work, due to the artist's inexperience, the religious decide to take the 17-year-old to help in the services of the new Church of the Order in Itu, in 1781.
While he works in the Carmelite Church in various services - such as Sacristan, playing the organ at the masses, decorating the altars for parties -, is hired by the artist José Patrício da Silva Manso to help with the decoration of the newly built matrix of Nossa Senhora da Candelária de Itu. It is not known for sure which of the works are due exclusively to the master and which are the assistant's. In any case, it is noted that even in works whose authorship is attributed to Jesuíno - such as the 12 panels of the chancel -, the guidance of José Patrício, the most experienced artist, is indisputable. As Mário de Andrade (1893 - 1945) observes, the only scholar of the colonial painter's work, the panels have a traditional and very academic "palette", in intense and dark reds and blues. They are also very irregular as a ensemble, especially with regard to the unity of composition of the narrated scenes.1 This collection of 12 canvases presents the first work of Jesuíno Painter, although as an apprentice painter.
It is with the decoration of the Church of Carmo de Itu (ca.1784) that Jesuíno achieves a first moment of artistic independence. From the set carried out, the ceiling of the chancel remains. If you still have in mind the tradition you knew, mix it with interventions of your own temperament. As in the ceiling of the matrix, painted by him and conceived by Silva Manso, the subject does not work in the perspective of escape, choosing to put the figures right in front, flattening the natural curve of the ceiling. To gather them together, giving unity to the scene represented,2 uses a wreath of leaves and flowers3 carried by cherubs and seraphim, in order to group the six venerable figures and the Carmelite saints in a single space, with the vision of the Virgin of the Carmo center. The artist frees himself here from dark tones and earthy tones. your palette whitening occurs. The chromatic ensemble formed by the radiance of the yellow light that starts from the crown of the virgin, the sky blue lining, the whites, the shades of red, blue, orange and green present both in the robes of the popes and in the angels of the angels and flowers thrown by them, suggest a warm atmosphere and luminous. In a curious way, Jesuíno inserts, on the lower right side of the composition, a single angel with brown skin, but with traits similar to those of white angels.
After the death of his wife, the artist goes to São Paulo, in 1795, with the task of decorating the Carmelite churches in the capital. Of the works carried out, only the painting of the ceiling of the church of the Ordem Terceira do Carmo can be appreciated, a work of greater importance. returns to austere chromaticism in the 24 figures of the nave's ceiling. never gives in to Baroque movement; His figures are hieratic and his gestures suggest a restrained rhythm.
Initiates Latin studies, he receives ordination in 1797 (however, because he is a mulatto, with the exception of the ex defectu natalium), he is called from then from Friar Jesuíno do Monte Carmelo. His artistic production decreases after receiving the orders.
Returns to Itu in 1797. is shaken by the failed attempt to enter the Third Order of Nossa Senhora do Monte Carmelo. He begins to idealize the Congregation of the Padres of Patrocínio around 1800. He gets the local support and even of Dom João VI (1767 - 1826) to build the Church of Nossa Senhora do Patrocínio, in Itu. He improvises himself an architect and designs his risk (the original facade is remodeled to the eclectic taste in 1894). He is advised by his children, all religious. His last works, the most dramatic of his artistic production, are the eight canvases of Santos Carmelitas in life size for the decoration of the side corridors of the church. He composes music for its opening, but dies in 1819 before seeing it ready, which happens a year later. According to Mário de Andrade, Frei Jesuíno do Monte Carmelo is the prototype of the artist from Colônia, much more intuitive than cult, located in the "entermeio between legitimate folk art and legitimate classical art".
Notes
1 For Mário de Andrade, the panels can be divided into two series, taking into account their artistic quality and the themes: six tall canvases about the life of Maria and six wide canvases telling the life of Jesus. - The first would have been designed by José Patrício da Silva Manso and the second by Jesuíno. However, both would have been colored by the disciple and later retouched by the master.
2 As Mário de Andrade observes, - "Jesuíno does not know how to count, or does not like this literary possibility, more typical of drawing than of painting. Jesuíno will never reside, when well expressed, in the entanglement of the scene, but in the psychology of the figures". From this there is a gallery of portrait figures (sometimes of the children themselves) combined with standard figures (mainly the female ones) in the artist's work.
3 On the garland of foliage and flowers, Mário de Andrade will state: "In fact, Jesuíno is using, if not creating, a 'Brazilianism' of decoration. This is a very Brazilian way of decorating, very traditional among us, taking advantage of greens and flowers with extravagant prodigality, tangent of naivety and bad taste. deliciousness that only gives this ceiling an unusual appearance, like a joyfully feast-of-the-fly flavor".
Criticism
"[...] as a spirit and consequently as a style too, it bravely moves away from the spirit and of the style of European art that I imagined to follow, but it is far from proposing any Brazilian synthesis as well. He is always a Baroque, but a Baroque without style, but he is also no romantic, forerunner of European Romanticism, as any patriotism can facilitate. [...] However, within the Baroque, the work of Father Jesuíno do Monte Carmelo represents a lower cultural reality. We understand very well the strength of man. Some of his figures, even groups like the lining, are admirable for creative power, originality and beauty. but Jesuíno is in this malicious intermediary between legitimate folk art and legitimate erudite art. There is a hint of irregularity, of . . . of baseness in his work, which has none of the forces, forms and fatalities of folk art. but Jesuíno does not reach the scholar. It's a popular. And very urbanized. So that we are always obliged to see him in what he intended to be, a cult painter! And within that, it is the cult without tradition behind it, the worship without having learned enough, the cult without culture. In this too, he reconfirms himself in the group of Brazilian artists from the colony, and represents more sharply than most of them, what was the national artistic culture of his time. In this sense, it even reaches the prototype. [...]"
Mário de Andrade
ANDRADE, Mário de. Padre Jesuíno do Monte Carmelo. São Paulo: Martins, 1963. (Complete Works by Mário de Andrade, 16). p.201-202
Carves
Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo/Brazil Collection - São Paulo SP
Church of the Third Order of Nossa Senhora do Carmo - São Paulo SP
Church and Convent of Nossa Senhora do Carmo - Itu SP
Church and Convent of Nossa Senhora do Patrocínio - Itu SP
Igreja Matriz de Nossa Senhora da Candelária - Itu SP
Museum of Sacred Art - São Paulo SP
Exhibition Posthumous
1988 - São Paulo SP - The Afro-Brazilian Hand, at MAM/SP
1994 - São Paulo SP - A critical look at the collection of the 19th century, at the Pinacoteca do Estado
1998 - São Paulo SP - The magical universe of the Brazilian Baroque, at the SESI Art Gallery
2000 - São Paulo SP - Brazil + 500 Rediscovery Show, at the Bienal Foundation
2000 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazil + 500 rediscovery show. Negro de Corpo e Soul, at Fundação Casa França-Brasil
Source: Itaú Cultural
