João José Rescala (Rio de Janeiro RJ 1910 - Salvador BA 1986)
Painter, illustrator, draftsman, restorer and teacher.
Around 1925, he studied at the Liceu de Artes e Ofícios do Rio de Janeiro [Rio de Janeiro School of Arts and Crafts] and, in 1928, entered the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes (Enba) [National School of Fine Arts], becoming a pupil of Rodolfo Chambelland (1879 - 1967), Augusto Bracet (1881 - 1960), Manoel Santiago (1897 - 1987) and Marques Júnior (1887 - 1960). In 1931, he founded, with other artists, the Núcleo Bernardelli. He exhibited at several editions of the Salão Nacional de Belas Artes (SNBA) [National Salon of Fine Arts], receiving the bronze and silver medals in 1934 and 1939 and the domestic and foreign travel prizes in 1937 and 1943, thanks to which he traveled through states of the North and Northeast of Brazil and went to Mexico and the United States. In the latter country, he held solo shows in New York and Chicago in 1945. A year later, he exhibited at the 23rd Venice Biennale and held a solo show at the Associação Brasileira de Imprensa (ABI) [Brazilian Press Association] in Rio de Janeiro. In the 1940s, he worked as a draftsman and illustrator for the Revista do Museu Nacional de História Natural [Journal of the National Museum of Natural History] (Rio de Janeiro) and took a specialization course at the New School for Social Research in 1945, in the United States. He moved to Salvador in 1956, when he passed the competitive examination for full professor of theory, conservation and restoration of paintings at the Escola de Belas Artes [School of Fine Arts] of the Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFBA) [Federal University of Bahia] in Salvador. He later became director of the School, from 1963 to 1967. In 1950, he worked as a technician for the Instituto do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico Nacional (Iphan) [National Historic and Artistic Heritage Institute], carrying out conservation work on religious works of art in Bahia, Pernambuco and Goiás.
Critical Commentary
João José Rescala's painting has regionalist themes. The artist depicts genre scenes and local landscapes with correct drawing and exuberant colors, emphasizing the luminosity of Bahia. Fishermen, washerwomen, vendors or simple passers-by are seen in squares, beaches, lagoons, rivers and churches, and represented not close up, but always integrated into their surroundings. He highlights the joy and simplicity of the people and the natural and historical beauty of the land. There is a stylization in the canvases that recalls some genre scenes by Carybé (1911 - 1997), as in the canvases No Largo de São Francisco [At Largo de São Francisco], Lavadeiras II [Washerwomen II] and Procissão do Senhor dos Navegantes [Procession of Our Lord of the Navigators], exhibited in 1982 in Salvador.
His mystical works, which lie between a magical surrealism and metaphysical painting, are also marked by Bahian culture. In them, he combines Catholic and Candomblé symbols, Brazilian religious architecture, shells, trees and waves, among other elements, in surreal spaces, with subdued colors and rounded contours. Examples of this procedure are the paintings Meditação Poético-Pictórica: Sublimação [Poetic-Pictorial Meditation: Sublimation] and Meditação Poético-Pictórica: A Naveta [Poetic-Pictorial Meditation: The Incense Boat], both from 1968.
He also painted religious canvases, such as Revelação do Dogma de Nossa Senhora da Conceição [Revelation of the Dogma of Our Lady of the Conception], from 1971, which is in the Church of Nossa Senhora da Conceição da Praia in Salvador. The composition is traditional, perhaps because of the requirements of the commission. In the canvas, the Vatican is seen in the background and, floating in the foreground, the pope on the left and Our Lady on the right.
Critiques
"In 1946, Frederico Barta wrote in O Jornal: 'Rescala is not a modern in the extravagant and necessarily confused sense given to the term, but neither is he an academic in the pejorative sense of the 'pompier' or of the inexpressive and formalist. He is always the same healthy and serious painter, who consciously follows his course, resistant to excessive audacity, respecting the acquired basis of study, faithful to the tradition of drawing, but without the narrow limitations that depersonalize and vulgarize so many'. His work is charged with a lyrical realism, constantly focusing on his concern with social problems and his search for Brazilianness, which he expressed as follows: 'Brazilian painting is currently dominated by a lively feeling of Brazilianness. Above all, one seeks to transplant to the canvas what is truly Brazilian - our customs, our types, our landscapes'. (July 26, 1938, newspaper A Tarde, Salvador BA)".
Samira B. Serpa Crespo et al.
LOUZADA, Júlio. Artes plásticas: seu mercado, seus leilões. São Paulo: J. Louzada, 1984-.
Solo Exhibitions
1945 - Chicago (United States) - Solo
1945 - New York (United States) - Solo
1959 - Madrid (Spain) - Solo, at Instituto de Cultura Hispânica
1968 - Salvador BA - Retrospectiva 40 Anos de Pintura [Retrospective 40 Years of Painting]
Group Exhibitions
1931 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Salão Revolucionário [Revolutionary Salon], at Enba
1932 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1º Salão do Núcleo Bernardelli [1st Núcleo Bernardelli Salon], at Sociedade Sul-Rio-Grandense de Cultura
1933 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 2º Salão do Núcleo Bernardelli [2nd Núcleo Bernardelli Salon]
1933 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 40ª Exposição Geral de Belas Artes [40th General Exhibition of Fine Arts], at Enba
1933 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Seis Artistas [Six Artists], at Studio Eros Volúsia
1934 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 3º Salão do Núcleo Bernardelli [3rd Núcleo Bernardelli Salon], at Enba
1934 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Salão Nacional de Belas Artes [National Salon of Fine Arts] - bronze medal
1935 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 4º Salão do Núcleo Bernardelli [4th Núcleo Bernardelli Salon], at Enba
1936 - São Paulo SP - 4º Salão Paulista de Belas Artes [4th São Paulo Fine Arts Salon] - honorable mention
1937 - São Paulo SP - 5º Salão Paulista de Belas Artes [5th São Paulo Fine Arts Salon]
1937 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Salão Nacional de Belas Artes [National Salon of Fine Arts] - domestic travel prize
1939 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Salão Nacional de Belas Artes [National Salon of Fine Arts] - silver medal
1943 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Salão Nacional de Belas Artes [National Salon of Fine Arts] - foreign travel prize
1946 - Venice (Italy) - Bienal de Veneza [Venice Biennale]
1947 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Salão Fluminense de Belas Artes [Rio de Janeiro State Fine Arts Salon] - Alberto Torres Prize
1948 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Salão Fluminense de Belas Artes [Rio de Janeiro State Fine Arts Salon] - Baptista da Costa Prize
1951 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Salão Nacional de Arte Moderna [National Salon of Modern Art]
1954 - Porto Alegre RS - Salão Gaúcho de Belas Artes [Rio Grande do Sul Fine Arts Salon] - acquisition prize
1956 - Recife PE - Salão Pernambucano de Belas Artes [Pernambuco Fine Arts Salon] - 1st painting prize
1958 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Exposição [Exhibition], at Aiba - gold medal
1966 - Salvador BA - 1ª Bienal Nacional de Artes Plásticas [1st National Visual Arts Biennial]
1967 - Salvador BA - Exposição Coletiva de Natal [Christmas Group Exhibition], at Panorama Galeria de Arte
1970 - Salvador BA - Exposição de Reinauguração da Panorama Galeria de Arte [Reopening Exhibition of Panorama Galeria de Arte], at Panorama Galeria de Arte
1975 - Salvador BA - Feira da Bahia [Bahia Fair]
1982 - São Paulo SP - Exposição Núcleo Bernardelli: arte brasileira nos anos 30 e 40 [Núcleo Bernardelli Exhibition: Brazilian Art in the 1930s and 1940s], at Acervo Galeria de Arte
1984 - Aracaju SE - Artistas Baianos [Bahian Artists], at J. Inácio Galeria de Arte
1986 - Brasília DF - Baianos em Brasília [Bahians in Brasília], at Casa da Manchete
Posthumous Exhibitions
1994 - São Paulo SP - Bienal Brasil Século XX [20th-Century Brazil Biennial], at Fundação Bienal
1999 - Salvador BA - 100 Artistas Plásticos da Bahia [100 Visual Artists from Bahia], at Museu de Arte Sacra
2003 - São Paulo SP - Arte e Sociedade: uma relação polêmica [Art and Society: A Controversial Relationship], at Itaú Cultural
Source: Itaú Cultural
