Arcadópolis
Caipiras negaceando
What you see
In the gloom of a forest, two men move forward with caution. At lower left, one in a hat and white shirt crouches and aims his gun to the left. Behind him stands an older man with a red headscarf, dark vest and gray beard, holding a long gun and resting a hand on his companion's shoulder, his eyes wide open.
Almost the whole picture is dark, and light falls only on the shirts, the pale trousers and the faces. The trunks and ferns behind can barely be made out. Notice the sprig of leaves on the crouching man's sleeve, the bare feet, and the tear at the knee of the standing man's trousers.
About José Ferraz de Almeida Júnior
José Ferraz de Almeida Júnior was born in 1850 in Itu, in inland São Paulo, and studied at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in Rio de Janeiro and then, with a scholarship from Emperor Pedro II, at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, from 1876 to 1882. Back in Brazil he devoted himself more and more to the “caipira”, the country people of São Paulo, whom he painted in simple scenes of work and rest under the strong inland light. His “Caipira Cutting Tobacco” had so many imitators that Monteiro Lobato joked that future historians would think Brazilians of the time did nothing but cut tobacco. He died in Piracicaba in 1899.
More by José Ferraz de Almeida Júnior
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