Portinari Project takes painter’s work to IMPA Tech

Last Thursday (30), mathematician João Candido Portinari presented a project to keep alive the work of his father, painter Candido Portinari (1903-1962), one of Brazil’s leading artists. O Portinari Projectcreated in 1979 in the Mathematics Department of PUC-Rio, is responsible for identifying, cataloging and reproducing the art of the artist, who is one of the key pieces of Brazilian Modernism.

“Brazil is a country with a multicultural background, the original peoples, the successive waves of European immigration, the Africans who came as slaves, the Asians who came later… we are a country of multiple colors and accents. One consequence of this is that, for a long time, our art was borrowed. In the first decades of the 20th century, many artists tried to synthesize Brazilian art, but few were as successful as Candido Portinari. I like the tenderness and affection with which he looks at scenes from Brazilian daily life,” said IMPA’s director-general, Marcelo Viana, on welcoming João Candido to IMPA Tech.

Portinari’s works portray the people and reality of Brazil in a social and humanistic way. His paintings deal with themes such as inequality, life in the countryside, childhood and the suffering of workers. Valuing color and form, Portinari left a collection of more than 5,400 works, such as Retreatants (1944), Coffee (1935), Dead Child (1944) and the great War and Peace (1952-1956), made up of two large panels commissioned by the UN (United Nations Organization) – considered his greatest legacy.

João Candido emphasized how happy he was to be back in a mathematics faculty. “It’s a great thrill to be able to return to my origins. I hope you enjoy this exciting journey through Portinari’s work. More than half my life has been dedicated to this project, which was born under the gaze of great names in Brazilian science,” he said.

The artist was part of the intellectual elite and lived alongside important figures in Brazilian history. His legacy has been presented in more than 480 lectures at different science and technology centers, educational institutions and museums in Brazil and abroad. More than four decades of lectures and multimedia presentations.

Student Beatriz Nunes, who studied at a school whose uniform had pictures of Portinari’s work, highlighted the impact of the meeting. “It was a privilege to learn a little more about the history of Candido Portinari. I grew up seeing his paintings and, even without knowing the meaning, I was impacted by the arts. When I left high school, I was able to reflect more on inequality and other people’s life stories through art,” she said.

Mathematics was crucial in enabling the launch of the Portinari Projectwhich brings together all the digitized content and is open to the public. When organizing the collection, data was cross-referenced between letters, texts and drafts to identify works. “The solution was no longer in the brush, but in mathematics,” said João Candido.

For Beatriz, the union between science and art was an inspiring surprise. “I had no idea that mathematics and technology were linked to the arts. The paintings are very complex and allow for many detailed studies. I was very surprised.”

Since the late 1990s, participants in the project have been applying algorithms to analyze microscopic features of Portinari’s canvases – such as the thickness of the paint or the curves formed by the movement of the brushes. These characteristics, recorded digitally, create a kind of unique “handwriting” of the artist, making it possible to identify his works precisely.

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