MASP

Benedito Calixto

Port of Santos, SP, 1888

  • Author:
    Benedito Calixto
  • Bio:
    Itanhaém, São Paulo, Brasil, 1853-São Paulo, Brasil ,1927
  • Title:
    Port of Santos, SP
  • Date:
    1888
  • Medium:
    Óleo sobre tela
  • Dimensions:
    27 x 65 cm
  • Credit line:
    Comodato MASP B3 – BRASIL, BOLSA, BALCÃO, em homenagem aos ex-conselheiros da BM&F e BOVESPA
  • Object type:
    Pintura
  • Inventory number:
    C.01209
  • Photography credits:
    MASP

TEXTS



From a young age, Benedito Calixto studied the trade of carpentry with his father. He began painting in his 20s as a self-taught artist, and in 1882 worked on the ceiling decorations of the Guarany Theater in Santos, on the São Paulo coast. His patron was the Viscount of Vergueiro, a coffee magnate of the era. The following year, he traveled to Paris to study at the Académie Julien with several important painters of the French academy. In addition to his painting, Calixto was a historian and member of the São Paulo Historical and Geographical Institute, and a founding partner of its Santos branch. It is no coincidence that his art reveals a documentary interest. He portrayed the Caiçaras, the traditional inhabitants of the South and Southeast coasts of Brazil, and helped create an iconography of São Paulo in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His links to the region, along with the techniques learned in France, made him one of the leading painters of his time, when São Paulo’s rapidly growing wealth contrasted with the rarefied pictorial output of local landscapes, especially oil paintings. Calixto dedicated his work to representations of seascapes from the São Paulo coastline, such as Prainha - Itanhaém (Praia de Itanhaém, SP) [Little Beach — Itanhaém (Itanhaém Beach, SP] (1892), Rio Itanhaém, SP [Itanhaém River, SP] (1896), Enseada com barcos, SP [Bay with Boats, SP] (1907) and Canto de praia (Baixada santista), SP [Beach Corner (Baixada santista), SP] (1924). His paintings show several views of São Paulo’s southern coast, especially its vegetation, rivers, beaches, houses, boats and, occasionally, figures. Upon return from Europe, Calixto brought with him a camera and developed his photography practice. The fine strokes of some of his works reveal the influence of photography on pieces he produced after studying the medium. Such precision is visible in Porto do Consulado em Santos, SP [Port of the Consulate in Santos, SP] (1887) and Porto do Bispo, Santos, SP, visto desde o mar [Port of the Bishop, Santos, SP, View from the Sea] (1887). Commentators have noted that Calixto did not necessarily paint what he saw, but also his fantasies and memories of a recent past. The Port of the Bishop represented in the eponymous painting from 1887, for instance, was the old Port of Santos in the early 19th century, revelatory of how the painter covered several time periods in his work. This is also notable in Porto de Santos, SP (visto à esquerda) [Port of Santos, SP (On the Left)] and Porto de Santos, SP (visto à direita) [Port of Santos, SP (On the Right)]. These 1890 paintings reveal a transforming coastline due to port development, whose construction began in 1888 and ended in 1892. Calixto also painted a scenario undergoing intense urbanization and transformation, but carrying with it the hallmarks of its recent past. Both works are compositions that seem to be in continuity, with large cargo ships (the first steam-powered vessels docking off the coast of São Paulo), workers lined up to carry coffee bags (composed in black, only a few years after slavery had been abolished), and the architecture of Santos at the time. There is a noticeable contrast between the local boats, monumental ships and the tropical vegetation of the background. Over the following decades, coffee exports would set the course for São Paulo state and the country at large as a driver of industrialization. Calixto painted a scenario in transformation, in which different landscapes, time periods and velocities existed simultaneously.

— Guilherme Giufrida, assistant curator, MASP, 2018

Source: Adriano Pedrosa, Guilherme Giufrida, Olivia Ardui (orgs.), From the brazilian exchange to the museum: MASP B3 long-term loan, 19th and 20th centuries, São Paulo: MASP, 2018.



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