Artworks
Paisagem com Cavalos [Landscape with Horses]
painting
Date
1955
Technique
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
73,5 x 100 cm
Simão César Dordio Gomes produces this painting two years before he receives the 1st prize for painting from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (1957). Painted in the final phase of his career, this - Paisagem com Cavalos
recalls the Alentejo, the birthplace of the painter, who eventually settled in Porto as Professor at the School of Fine Arts (1957-1960), encouraging several generations of modern painters and renewing the academic education system.
Using the same theme as in the compositions he created when he returned from Paris in the mid-1920s, Dordio is already far from the initial experimentalism of when he declared himself aesthetically "Independent of everything and everyone" (Os Cinco Independentes, SNBA, 1923). The pictorial production of this later period nostalgically repeats the naturalist framework and the same beloved figures of the painter - horses - apparently wild or free. This condition of freedom is reinforced, in its figurative sense, by the loose brushstrokes, by the absence of perspective in a centred, flat composition, and by the rhythm given to the animals' backs and the surrounding landscape, also recalling compositions by Franz Marc, whom he had probably met during his stay in the French capital.
In this work, the expressionist hints are suggested, chromatically, by the use of unnatural tones that are applied in a contained manner in blotches or accents. Although revisiting the sunny Alentejo, the balanced palette of dark tones and a more diffuse luminosity suggest the influence of the atmosphere of the north of the country.
RD
recalls the Alentejo, the birthplace of the painter, who eventually settled in Porto as Professor at the School of Fine Arts (1957-1960), encouraging several generations of modern painters and renewing the academic education system.
Using the same theme as in the compositions he created when he returned from Paris in the mid-1920s, Dordio is already far from the initial experimentalism of when he declared himself aesthetically "Independent of everything and everyone" (Os Cinco Independentes, SNBA, 1923). The pictorial production of this later period nostalgically repeats the naturalist framework and the same beloved figures of the painter - horses - apparently wild or free. This condition of freedom is reinforced, in its figurative sense, by the loose brushstrokes, by the absence of perspective in a centred, flat composition, and by the rhythm given to the animals' backs and the surrounding landscape, also recalling compositions by Franz Marc, whom he had probably met during his stay in the French capital.
In this work, the expressionist hints are suggested, chromatically, by the use of unnatural tones that are applied in a contained manner in blotches or accents. Although revisiting the sunny Alentejo, the balanced palette of dark tones and a more diffuse luminosity suggest the influence of the atmosphere of the north of the country.
RD