Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro (Lisboa, Portugal 1846 - Idem 1905)
Caricaturist, ceramist.
Family of artists, begins in the arts as a theatrical actor, attending in 1860 the School of Dramatic Arts. The following year, he joined the Higher Course of Letters at the Academia de Belas Artes de Lisboa, where he also attends, without completing, the courses in Civil Architecture, Artistic Drawing and Vivo Modelo. In 1868, he joined the Sociedade Promotora da Fellas Artes, participating in exhibitions promoted by the institution. The following year he published his first caricatures in the newspaper A Revolution de Setembro and began the production of caricatures for his first album, O Calcanhar de Achilles, published in 1870 in Lisbon. In the same year, he founded the periodicals with the hot seat and the binoculars. In 1871, he was awarded at the Madrid International Exhibition, with the work Bodas d'Aldeia. In 1872, he published the album Notes on the Picaresque Viagem do Emperor of the Rasilb through Europe, where he satirizes the Emperor Dom Pedro II (1825 - 1891). In 1875, he came to Brazil and founded the periodical Mágica Lantern, in which he created the character Zé Povinho. That same year, O Mosquito collaborates in the periodical, alongside Angelo Agostini (1843 - 1910). In 1876, he works in O Fígaro with Cândido de Faria (1849 - 1911). In 1877, he founded the PSIT! and the following year, the beetle, in which a series of caricatures satirizes local politicians. After suffering two attacks in the city, he returned to Portugal in 1879. In 1880 he created, with other Portuguese artists, the group of Leão who, distancing himself from academicism, inaugurated naturalism in the Portuguese arts. In 1885, he founded in Caldas da Rainha the faience factory that revitalizes the production of ceramics in this region. In 1889, the factory's production was awarded at the Paris International Exhibition. As responsible for the construction of the Portuguese pavilion, he receives from the French government the degree of Knight of the Legion of Honor.
Critical Comment
Pioneer in the caricature genre in Portugal, Bordalo Pinheiro is already a renowned artist when he comes to Brazil, In 1875. To the publication, in 1870, of the album O Calcanhar de Achilles, in which he satirizes several personalities of the Literary Literary of Lisbon, other editions follow, such as the notes of Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro on the picaresque Viagem do Emperor of the Rasilb for Europe, 1872 and the tetric history of a lyrical company, 1873, a collection of cartoons of the main Portuguese actors of the period. Such creations spread their prestige, as well as their reputation as an irreverent and controversial artist. The notes of Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro, an album composed of more than a hundred drawings organized in the form of a comic book, in which he satirizes the emperor Dom Pedro II (1825 - 1891), achieve great success.
In the beginning of the decade of 1870, in addition to producing for the periodicals the Berlinda and the binoculars, founded by him, and other vehicles of the Portuguese press, collaborates with the magazines Ilustración Española y Americana and El Mundo Hómico, from Madrid, and the English The Illustrated London News. But it is in the periodical Magic Lantern, founded with Guilherme de Azevedo (1839 - 1882) and Abilio Guerra Junqueiro (1850 - 1923) in 1875, which Pinheiro presents his best-known character, the Zé Povinho, a smart and cunning figure who becomes a Portuguese national symbol.
In the years he works in Brazil, between 1875 and 1879, he produces intensely for various organs of the Rio de Janeiro press, political cartoons and caricatures of personalities endowed with innovative creativity and unusual boldness for the Brazilian context of the time. Among the illustrations published in O Mosquito, there are frequent anticlerical cartoons and political satire. Dom Pedro II is portrayed in numerous cartoons that comment on current political facts. In one of them, from 1876, entitled The Religious Question, he shows the Emperor giving his hand to the paddle to Pope Pius IX, in a gesture of submission to the demands of the clergy.
Lance, in 1877, the periodical Psit!, in which the characters Psit and Arolae appear, and, the following year, the beetle, for which the character Fagundes creates. In 1878, a public controversy with Angelo Agostini (1843 - 1910) wages a sequence of cartoons published weekly on the pages of O Besouro and Revisada Ilustrada, for which they collaborate, respectively, Bordalo and Agostini.
His satires of the political and social situation of the empire earn him antagonisms and enmities between powerful politicians, probable motivation of the two attacks he suffered and the decision to return to Portugal in 1879. Year, he founded in Lisbon, with Guilherme de Azevedo, the periodical António Maria, an illustrated newspaper in which Bordalo passes on the most important aspects of Portugal's political, social and artistic life over the course of almost a decade. Also in Portugal, he faces reactions to his political positions. In place of the periodical António Maria, founded in 1885, with his son Manuel Gustavo Bordalo Pinheiro, the newspaper Pontos NOS II, which ended in 1891, as a result of the censorship imposed on an article about the Porto Revolution. From 1891 to 1898, he resumes the publication of António Maria, in which he returns to present the character Zé Povinho, the artist's favorite commentator.
In 1880, he creates, with the artists Antonio Ramalho, João Vaz (1859 - 1931), José Malhoa (1854 - 1933), António Carvalho da Silva Porto (1850 - 1893), Columbano Bordalo Pinheiro (1857 - 1929), among others, the Grupo do Leão, so called because The artists gathered at Café Leão de Ouro, in Lisbon. Distancing itself from academicism, the group is responsible for the naturalistic renewal in Portuguese art. In the same year, he released the first series on the album of Glórias, composed of more than forty drawings of personalities, known as Portraits-Charges, in which he brings together illustrations of renowned figures. The second series is edited in 1885, and the third in 1902. In a famous caricature, criticizing the frequent trips made by the Emperor, Bordalo portrays Dom Pedro II dressed in an overcoat, with the travel bag open, from which the Tucano mantle, in a hotel room where, on the chair, they are on the scepter and the crown.
In 1884, founded in the Portuguese city of Caldas da Rainha, with his brother Feliciano Bordalo Pinheiro (1847 - 1905), the faience factory. starts to dedicate himself to the production of ceramics. In 1889, he commands the construction of the Portuguese Pavilion at the International Exhibition of Paris, where he exhibits some of his ceramics, for which he receives gold and silver medals. He collaborates for several Portuguese periodicals and prepares illustrations and covers for books. In 1899, he travels to Rio de Janeiro, and exhibits, on Rua do Ouvidor, among other pieces, the Beethoven jar, offered to the then President of the Republic Campos Sales, and today he is part of the collection of the National Museum of Fine Arts - MNBA.
EM 1900, for the periodical A Parody, publishes a series of cartoons that represent, among other themes, politics (the great pig), finance (the great dog), the economy (the brooding chicken) and the parliamentary rhetoric (the great parrot). The poet Artur Ernesto de Santa Cruz Magalhães, an admirer and collector of the work of the caricaturist, now deceased, founds the Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro Museum in his residence, in 1916. be municipal in 1924. Over time, the collection is increased by donations made by the family and by incorporating private collections.
For Pedro Correia do Lago, although Bordalo Pinheiro's contribution has been significant for the development of the caricature and the press Brazilian, her drawing, in a pen or lithography, more free and stylized, does not impose style, probably due to the strong influence of Angelo Agostini, author of a more detailed and precise drawing.1 Despite the short duration of her stay in Rio de Janeiro, the Bordalo Pinheiro's prestige in the local cultural environment is remarkable, not only with regard to the history of Brazilian caricature, but also in the political life of the Second Reign.
Note
1 LAGO, Pedro Corrêa do. Brazilian caricaturists: 1836-1999. Rio de Janeiro: Sextante Artes, 1999. p. 44.
Criticism
"On the spontaneity with which he composed his works he says well, not only the very character of his art, but also the testimony of those who knew him closely, among which Saavedra Machado. According to this testimony, his usual way of working was to talk and laugh, and often accompanying with his attitude, gesture and expression, attitudes, gestures and expressions of his caricatures. Around the table where the master was, all his collaborators gave themselves concernedly to the work they produced. Only Bordalo started and completed the task that was part of him, with the greatest of the carelessness.'
Hence the great figure of this very personal art, sometimes gracious, sometimes violent, but always healthy, always direct and clear, Without the use of half-terms, a work in remarkable truth, as it covers, in addition to the exclusive collaboration of ephemeral periodicals, such as the marble, the magic lantern and psit! (1875-79), and with the Portuguese newspapers Antônio Maria, the points in the II and the parody, filling the period from 1880 to 1900, almost without interruption.
In addition to what left us in O Besouro, where the His verve as a commentator for Lápis is best revealed, in all his maturity, it will be perhaps in O Antonio Maria and in the parody, between 1880 and 1900 - some of the pages of these newspapers well worthy of pairing with those of the greatest caricaturists in the world. And, in the case of an impulsive one, who put his love for the truth above all, it will perhaps not be too flattering the concept that the observer today can form about the motives of this feature film, moved and incisive, that the art of Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro left for posterity."
Herman Lima
Lima, Herman. The precursors (conclusion). In: ______. History of Caricature in Brazil. Rio de Janeiro: J. Olympio, 1963. V. 3, p. 894-896.
"Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro is the greatest exponent of caricature in Portugal and played an important role in the Brazilian caricature of the 19th century, when he lived in Rio de Janeiro From 1875 to 1879 and collaborating intensely with various organs of the illustrated press such as the mosquito, the besouro and psst!
Its production was abundant and an innovative creativity for the Brazilian press of the time, for which Bordalo brought the wealth and Acuity of his secure trait, developed in the observation of the customs of the people and the behaviors of the elite in Portugal.
His exceptional design and the experience in the Portuguese press have actually prepared him for an equally tasty approach to the reality that he would discover in Rio de Janeiro at the end of the Empire. Since his youth, Bordalo had frequented Brazilian intellectuals established in Portugal (...) and ardently desired an opportunity to establish himself in Brazil. His four-year stay in the country was extremely fruitful, both for his career and for the solidification of caricature in our press, but his more advanced design did not re-orient the Brazilian illustrated press, marked by the overwhelming influence of Ângelo Agostini.
His trait might be too sophisticated for a Brazilian audience more accustomed to the almost photographic precision of the lithographic portraits of Agostini and his followers, and it took another 20 years after his departure for another Portuguese genius, Julião Machado, to succeed fact to impose a new style among us, decisively influencing the next generation. (...) But there is no doubt that with Bordalo's departure the caricature in Brazil lost a booster of remarkable creativity, which could have exerted a decisive influence to accelerate its evolution".
Pedro Corrêa do Lago
Lago, Pedro Corrêa do. Brazilian caricaturists: 1836-1999. Rio de Janeiro: Sextante Artes, 1999. p. 40 and 44
Acerves
Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro Museum - Lisbon (Portugal)
National Museum of Fine Arts - MNBA - Rio de Janeiro RJ
Collective exhibitions
1868 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Society Exhibition Promoter of the Bellas Artes
1870 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Exhibition of the Society Promoter das Bellas Artes
1871 - Madrid (Spain) - Madrid International Exhibition - Award-winning
1872 - Lisbon (Portugal) - 9th Exhibition of the Society Promotora das Bellas Artes
1874 - Lisbon (Portugal) - 10th Exhibition of the Society Promotora das Bellas Artes
1876 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 24th General Exhibition of Fine Arts, at Aiba
1881 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Grupo do Leão, at the Geography Society
1881 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Grupo do Leão, at Jornal do Comércio de Portugal
1889 - Paris (France) - International Exhibition of Paris - Gold and Bronze Medals
Postombs Exhibitions
2000 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazil + 500 Rediscovery Exhibition. Negro de Corpo e Alma, at Fundação Casa França-Brasil
2001 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian caricaturists, at the Instituto Cine Cultural
2004 - São Paulo SP - Paper Office, at CCSP
Source: Itaú Cultural
