Eliseu Visconti was an Italian immigrant – an artist between two continents – who merged Brazilian academicism with Parisian fin-de-siècle modernism. In Autorretrato (1902), Visconti’s defiant gaze confronts the viewer. The painting was produced soon after he returned to Brazil from seven years of training in Paris, where his works were ignored by the public but celebrated by critics. He wields his brushes like weapons against an empty backdrop, which echoes the raw canvas he is transforming. His left side is realistic, while his right is sketchy and Post-Impressionistic. In the background, positioned between his eyes and the top of his head, the sky and clouds outline a horizon, calling attention to the forces that guide him between tradition and modernity: a keen eye and self-awareness. At least forty self-portraits made over five decades testify to Visconti’s pride in the craft. As a reader of Goethe, he reflected on innovation outside of tradition and constructed his own image as an artist.
This is the first time the work of Eliseu Visconti is presented at Biennale Arte.
—Luiza Interlenghi
