Arcadópolis
Nhá Chica
What you see
Nhá Chica stands by a window in profile, looking out, with a long-stemmed pipe between her lips. She holds the pipe in her right hand and rests her left on the sill. She wears a loose white blouse and a pink skirt. Beyond the window are trees, blue sky and a stick fence.
Light from the window falls full on her face and arms, while the room behind her sinks into a dark reddish brown. The skin and the thin fabric of the blouse are painted with great care. Don’t miss the wisp of smoke rising from the pipe, and the dark pitcher on the windowsill.
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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