Itajai, art deco church

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I don`t think that if you say you are going to Brazil, most people ask if you are visiting Itajai, as it`s a port city with a rather shabby atmosphere and few notable buildings.

 However, there a couple of nice beaches nearby, an enjoyable art centre and this rather nice Art Deco church. Art Deco isn`t a style much associated with churches. It`s far more commonly seen in apartment blocks, seaside archtecture, cinemas and transportation hubs such as airports or bus stations. 

This is a Lutheran church. I couldn`t see inside but judging from photos on the web it`s rather plain. It`s on Rua. Dr. José Bonifácio Malburg, number 415.

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Painting in Trindade/ the blocky style - blocks, Trindade

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Blocks, Trindade, oil on card, 20.5 x 25 cm   available

Painting in Trindade

There are an increasing number of new blocks, none of which have much aesthetic merit or even interest. But I am trying to find something in the patterns of their facades. The older architecture isn't that interesting either, to be honest, but there are one or two older houses which have a certain charm. 

It's good to work around here, to walk to destinations and to feel that one is discovering ones own neighborhood. 

I'm working larger. I want boldness, a poster-like quality, like those famous Deco posters used for tourism advertisements- I'm preparing for Chicago which I shall try to paint in a broad and audacious manner.

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The Blocky Style
or
 fat crude lively pictures... 

The pictures here are larger than I have painted for a while and the idea is to construct a new style

The features of the new style are- 

1. thick outlines describing elements

2. clear colours

3. limited colour range

4. simple geometrical shapes 

5. cheerful storybook atmosphere.

To assist working on a larger scale I reduce to palette to four colours- a blue, white, a yellow and a warm dark colour such as a red or brown. This makes mixing easier. I use big fat brushes too. It might end up looking a lot like Sironi but less sad.

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Berwick-upon-Tweed and an exhibition of the Scottish Colourists

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Berwick-upon-Tweed

The town is solid stone, cheerfully sincere and beautifully situated on the convergence of the Tweed and the sea. It would have been a perfect painting place if the wind had been less strong. The choice of restaurants is not large. There are shops which seem to have been transplanted from the early sixties- traditional butchers or fish and chip shops.

Accents change sharply in from place to place in the UK. There seemed to be no gradation between  the Geordie and the Border Scots.

This lovely town was visited and painted by Lowry- the authorities have marked the places where he painted with information boards. I saw a fine small exhibition at Berwick Visual Arts called Scottish Colourists from the Fleming Collection, which included these lively, unpretentious pictures:

 George Leslie Hunter, Lower Largo, Fife, oil on Millboard, 1919

 George Leslie Hunter, Peonies in a Chinese Vase, oil on board, 1925

Often there are traces of art deco stylisation in the paintings of the twenties.

 J.D. Fergusson, The Drift Posts, oil on canvas, 1922

Samuel John Peploe, Luxembourg Gardens, oil on panel, 1910

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Monument, Central Square, Trujullo

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Rather deco styled monument in central Trujillo, commemorating the Peruvian war of independence, erected in 1929. The sculptures owe something to Michealangelo and perhaps Arno Breker.

This isn't Fascist sculpture- if we define Fascist sculpture by its political objectives. But it has some of what my old tutor Michael Bury used to describe as its "pea-braned" qualities.

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Portrait of a young philosopher

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Portrait of a young Philosopher, acryllic on board, 90 x 70 cm SOLD

A somewhat deco-styled portrait of a friend. It was painted about twenty years ago in a flat on Maude Road, Camberwell, London.

 I have always found it difficult to paint portraits unless I know the person. The process of painting portraits is rather intimate (at least the sort of more psychological portraiture that I substribe to) and necessitates this psychological proximity. 

A good model is hard to find. It's no surprise that artists find a model and use them for years on end, like Bonnard's Marthe, or Auerbach's JYM. I'd love to find here the sort of person who expresses in postures their mental attitudes, who is thoughtful and has the sort of openness that could me allow to enter their mental set. I'd love to do a series of pictures with them. 

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Pelotas: a celebration in photos

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Pelotas is a fine place to spend a few days if you love architecture, specifically of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The place is in a reasonable state, with some buildings well resored. There is some of the usual Brazillian grafitti and negligence, but it isn't too bad, and it feels generally safe to wander about. The splendid Guarani Theatre (above) has fine sculptures.

The city is founded round a central square and grids deriving from it, on a sight slope.

 

The building of most obvious interest to foreigners, because of its unusualness for Brasil is the Anglican Church, (pictured above) one of three I saw in the Pelotas and Rio Grande and just over100 years old, and recently, rather nicely restored.  The custodian is very pleasant about showing one around. 

 

The central square contains a fountain and a monuments, including this relief celebrating Garribaldi, and an old fellow selling sweets. (below).

There is a rather grand central market featuring this unusual clock tower:

 

The city contains a large number of residential buildings, some in pretentious- or glorious -19th centrury eclectic styles, others are more modest but similarly containing charming details, art noveau or deco, or various combinations thereof:

 

 

 

 

Charming old paving tiles:

I stayed at the abominable Rex Hotel, which is very centrally located, dilapidated, run by sour-faced hags and a fine place for mosquito-hunting, if that is your bag.

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Well, that is a selection of pictures for you: there are many other buildings both modest and grand that I haven't shown.

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Estreito, Miles Davis E.S.P.; grid plans I have loved; disorder

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Estreito- shops/ lojas, oil on card, 9.5 x 11.7 cm   - available

I drove across to the continent and worked in Estreito, a district with it's own atmosphere redolent of San Francisco because of the grid plan, and the way the roads undulate, sloping down towards the sea, but with the sense of decay, disorder and chaos that seems so characteristic of Brazil.

It isn't necessarily unpleasant: as I drove I listened to Miles Davis' E.S.P.: modal jazz seems analagous to the grid plan: a simple clear rythmic and harmonic plan underpinning individual solo expolations, and Davis' 1965 lp had a mood very appropriate to the hazy cool day: laid back, percussive.

The shops and street furniture are jammed together chaotically- using colour to compete for attention.

Urubici: female taste; architecture; 10a Festa Nacional das Hortaliças; Gauchos

Urubici is essentially a single long, straight road with a grand church (see yesterday) at one end and not much at the other and forested mountains all around. It is a cold place for Brazil, and usually gets a tiny bit of snow every year. The population is a mixture of Portuguese, German and Latvian descent, mainly.

We stayed at the Urubici Park Hotel: as before this was enjoyable though they seem to have difficultiues answering emails regarding reservations.

The hotel features a good deal of handicraft work. Indeed, horror vacui seems to have overcome the owner, and every space in the hotel was filled with a hand made affirmation of nature's goodness- though sometimes God gets an affirmation too. I do not know quite why all this horrifies me so.

The Lord is my shepherd: mural on the second floor opposite the stairs.

The manager is a woman: female taste has this peculiarity: this insistant cheefulness, this need for surface decoration. The coming of Easter has obviously excited the manager's creativity, and lent her the opportunity to transform the hotel so it resembles a giant kindergarten.



Throughout Brazil, women - usually those whose children are grown - meet to make such items, which invariably involve representations of flowers and small animals and pieces of cloth. The items are sold in specialist handicraft shops, or exchanged as gifts. I believe such behaviour is not uncommon among the female sex in other countries too.

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The town of Urubici features, most interestingly, a small number of attractive Art Deco villas. As I associate this style with seaside towns and cinemas, it seems slightly odd to me in this rustic setting. They are painted in the same ice-cream colours of their cousins in Miami and Southend on Sea. And then there is the main church itself, which I featured here yesterday, which while not strictly Art Deco in my book, is has some of the colourful geometricity associated with the style.

Classic Deco "Sun Motif" as stained glass window.

Such art deco styled buildings can be found also in Florianopolis. I wonder if they are all the product of the same architecture studio?

Some of these buldings are covered in tiles, Portuguese style:

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This being Brazil, there is no shortage of religious venues. There has been a veritable wave of new evangelical churches flooding Brazil (Mormons, in pairs like policemen, can be seen patrolling Florianopolis dressed in their trademark black suits despite the heat. I befriended a pair and tried to corrupt them with alchohol: they befriended me and tried to corrupt me with religion: neither side won). This represents disillusion with Catholicism, and a desire for North American cultural values- these new churches are not shy to link material and spiritual success and the style of their pastors is "charismatic".

Saturday night is a slow night, even in Brazillian evangelical churches. Note the tie: evangelical pastors dress like businessmen.

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Other local features are some rock carvings (representing quite what is anyone's guess), a trout farm, and various waterfalls.

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The Festa Nacional das Hortaliças is a celebration of vegetables:

A particularly impressive display.

There was also, perhaps more excitingly, a rodeo, rock bands and various tents selling country things and a funfair. The rodeo brought a host of Gauchos: rodeo isn't really a Catarinese thing: it's really part of the culture of Rio Grande do Sul. They have a traditional costume of scarves, baggy trousers, hats and knives worn at the belt.








Gaucho culture is much more macho than the culture of Coastal Santa Catarina, which is notable for its gentleness. The police issued some warnings about the knives, and I felt something rough and confrontational in the air.

Two Gaucho ladies.