Following his visit to the Faria de Guimarães Industrial School, Arlindo Rocha started the Special Sculpture Course at the Oporto School of Fine Arts, at a time when teaching in Fine Arts implied an initial formation, based on the values of drawing, providing After four years of intensive copy design classes, students begin the study of modeling, also by copying the former; soon after completing the Special Course, Arlindo competes for the Higher Sculpture Course at the same school. Accompanying a teaching reform, which aimed to modernize it, Arlindo Rocha was a student of teachers such as Rodolfo Pinto do Couto, Carlos Ramos, Dódio Gomes and Joaquim Lopes.
At this time, the responsible for the discipline of Sculpture is Rodolfo Pinto do Couto (1888-1945); As a disciple of Teixeira Lopes, Pinto do Couto was, as a painter and sculptor, a faithful follower of the teaching of classical norms, presenting as a program for the Sculpture course a thorough study of the human figure, continuing the School of his Master, which would come from Soares dos Reis.
For five years, students responded to various exercises in copying the old models, modeling small figurines in clay, which over the course evolved into larger exercises. The clay, with its great plasticity, offers little resistance to the movement of the hand, free of great care or of great utensils to be worked, becoming the matter of choice for sculpture studies, allowing a gradual evolution in the work of imitation of natural referents. This material, capable of satisfying the two most important conditions for a sculptor - to be subject to all forms that need to be given and to preserve these forms in almost unalterable way - becoming the material of choice for sculpture studies, also allowing performing small, medium and large scale exercises.
The learning of the human body began with studies that began by copying fragments of human body heads and ends in plaster, portrayed in a first phase, in relief exercises, where students aimed to deepen the mastery of apparent contours and volumes. illusory ones whose concern was mostly on the frontal view of the relief, and the student could later evolve into figures of round shape, in which the study of profiles is more in-depth. From the observation and representation of the detail, the students came to the composition of the complete figure at the end of the course, in addition to the copies of the old plaster models, and only in the third year, the study of the living model was introduced, thus providing the students. full mastery of the representation of the forms of the real. In sculpture, the most common definitive materials are stone and bronze, although industrial or alternative materials considered as poor materials are being introduced at this time.
The delay in the search for so-called modern materials for sculpture is related, on the one hand, to the fact that Portugal is "closed" to the developments in Europe, and, on the other, to the absence of technological disciplines. at the Fine Art Schools. Following the program model identical to that of the French and Italian schools, it was not for the Academy to pass on knowledge of sculpture technologies such as stone, wood or foundry. We can say that the sculpture was taken only as modeling.
The major concern would be to induce students in theoretical subjects such as Composition, leaving aside the techniques of “reproduction”. Direct carving was not understood as a possibility of execution of the final work, but as a means or technique of reproduction of the original, modeled piece. The techniques of sculpture were therefore given to skilled professionals, who were often trained as sculptors, but who carried within themselves an ancient and familiar tradition of flowerbeds and flowerbeds, whose uses and customs endowed them with an unreachable wisdom in so few years. course at a School of Fine Arts.
The students of sculpture, after making their models in clay, followed the work of trainers, responsible for making the molds, then allowing the passage of the initial study plaster. However, plaster does not offer the same durability as a noble material; learning how to master a technology, such as the stone or the foundry process, was only possible for those who could later train in the studio of great masters, who passed on to their disciples the knowledge, technology and adapted tools that evolved at a rapid pace, making the increasingly simplified and fast work of roughing or casting, which will partly influence the tendency of synthesis and the search for a personal language of the artist.
Shortly after Pinto do Couto's death, Barata Feyo (1899-1990) takes the place of sculpture's ruler, causing a series of pedagogical changes, begun in 1949, with the aim of extending the closed academic cycle in which the teaching of sculpture was. With the creative and pedagogical action of teachers such as Carlos Ramos, Joaquim Lopes and Dórdio Gomes, students gain greater ideological tolerance, which, combined with the exhibition initiatives, which brought together teachers and students in an art considered avant-garde, they embody the attempt to modernize Porto's teaching in relation to the Lisbon school, where the values and academic bases were followed, followed by Simões de Almeida, Tio and Sobrinho and later by Leopoldo de Almeida. However, the teaching of Porto can only take into account the expansion of the teaching of sculpture, which was then expanding, and which gave rise to the construction of new pavilions, which aimed to introduce students to the most varied technologies. Values and theoretical disciplines remained in the same connection with classical values, only translated into modern solutions. Learning and evaluations themselves are no longer guided by modeling exercises, and students can explore and deepen new themes and problems of art that arose simultaneously with the modernist waves that were vigorously practiced abroad.
Arlindo Rocha's academic formation is involuntarily led by the paths of the "hermetic teaching of human morphology", as we can observe in his sculptures during this period, with a great classical influence, close to the Greek canon, as it is Youth case, a portrait of a colleague cast in plaster, based on a mimesis process; that is, through direct representation, where formal idealization meets the beautiful, lacking the work of elements capable of characterizing the sculptor's “style”. Interestingly, after four years, Arlindo returns to this same theme, devising another portrait also titled Youth, where he tries, in a primary way, to break free from concrete volumes that make up a human face. This time, the face is feminine, composed of faceted plans, resulting from a synthesis of shapes and volumes, providing the sculptor with a first exercise of formal liberation, affirming here the contrast of idealization compared to the first Youth, held in 1943, while still a student. at EBAP. In this work we realize that Arlindo Rocha seeks to free himself from the forms of nature as referents, starting a process of interiorization, in which he begins by idealizing the organic volumes that make up a face, as concrete volumes, through geometric planes, starting the sculptor in a a course that would later demonstrate a formal and abstract statement of sculpture.
Arlindo Rocha claims to have started to learn sculpture when they stopped teaching him, not because he despised his academic background, but because he was interested early on in the possibility of dematerialization of sculpture, thus seeking new answers to a sculptural practice never explored before. Portugal. This personal research would, however, be hampered either by 'the long stage around objects only seen' or by the 'climate of complete stagnation and utter lack of information which the students sought to break with their own initiatives'.
Arlindo Rocha did his end-of-course work only in 1951, where he presents, for evaluation, an allusive relief to the death of Antonio Francisco Ferreira da Silva Porto (1818-1890). It was a bas-relief, which would be an integral part of the Monument to Silva Porto - The Pioneer, which Arlindo, along with the architect Vasco Vieira, was developing to build in the city of Silva Porto, Bié.
Due to the dimensions of his final work, Arlindo Rocha requires the Director of the School of Fine Arts of Porto to make the relief in the studio where he worked until 1956. It was the studio of the sculptor Henrique Moreira (1890-1979), installed at the back of the building. Jardim Arnaldo Gama, which Arlindo shared with his friend Manuel Pereira da Silva (1920-2003). With a path within a realistic aesthetic, Henrique Moreira was also a sculptor of the old school, whose academic modeling is completely visible in his works, particularly those that resulted in foundry, but that leaves a certain influence of Art Deco, when he carves it. stone, in particular the female figures. We cannot, therefore, say that Henrique Moreira transmitted to Arlindo any characteristic of his way of thinking or making sculpture. However, it would be interesting to study the experience of the sculptor Henrique Moreira with his disciples, since, despite his obvious admiration for classical language, this interaction seems to have left an impressive imprint on the two disciples who, in a different way, dedicated themselves looking for a personal language, within an abstracting language.
In the photo we can see Arlindo Rocha from the front and Manuel Pereira da Silva from the back, in the studio of Henrique Moreira.
Obtaining the final grade of 17 values, this final work brings together the classic composition and idealization, with a more synthesized conception, which reminds us a little of the work of his studio colleague, Manuel Pereira da Silva. With the utmost simplicity and resulting from a long process of synthesis, the honoree is represented without clothes, wrapped only in a flag, showing the biographical note of the death of Silva Porto. The body and flag are a contrast of absolute light and dark, for work almost without volumetric modeling, resembling an incision of design in the granite itself. The end result, we may consider, is in line with contemporary work for its time, since it is not based on modeling, but on straightforward design, in which only two scale models were previously performed. By creating planes and cutting lines, dug deep into the stone, Arlindo obtains the necessary contrasts to perceive his theme, thus not having to worry about passing light between organic volumes, which slightly enhances the appearance. This relief, which approaches the personal language of the artist, was affirmed in two distinct fields of sculpture, one more figurative and the other devoid of figuration, the one closest to a formal schematism and antithesis.
In a medium where the news about the main figures of Contemporary Art were scarce, it was worth to these young people to share, among their gatherings, their personal experiences during trips or even the exchange of international magazines, rare at the time, which makes the echoes of modernism in Portugal are of great importance. The young students sought to know the new values of art that was made and lived abroad. In this Oporto generation there are several names, which would constitute a particular group: Fernando Lanhas, Nadir Afonso, Arlindo Rocha, Fernando Fernandes, Amandio Silva, Manuel Pereira da Silva, Altino Maia, Eduardo Tavares, among others. These are young students from the Porto School of Fine Arts, who held a series of Independent exhibitions, thus expressing a desire for cultural decentralization, in addition to the initiatives of greater visibility and impact that took place almost exclusively in the capital.
n 1943, this group of students from the Porto School decided to unite against the large exhibition centers that were almost exclusively held in the capital. With the name of Independente, the first exhibition takes place at the premises of the Porto School of Fine Arts, with the almost exclusive presence of students.
Fernando Lanhas presents, in the Independents, his first abstract experiences, even suggesting to his colleagues the experimentation of the vast field of abstraction. At the same time that Lanhas shows his abstract paintings, Arlindo Rocha, who at the time signed as Arlindo Gonçalves, presents his first abstracting experiences in the field of sculpture.
The group expands early, opening doors to teachers or artists who demonstrate a willingness to pursue this desire for cultural decentralization through various initiatives in which the refusal to affiliate a style is evident.
The Independent Exhibitions assume fair value, as they constitute a first collective action at the time, even though not structured under a defined vanguard, inaugurates an innovative dialogue in the field of Portuguese art, providing favorable conditions for the emergence and development of the abstracting trend.
Ana Luisa Oliveira
MASTER IN PUBLIC SCULPTURE
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