Arcadópolis
Reading
What you see
A young woman leans back in a wooden folding chair on a terrace with a metal railing, reading. She wears a pale skirt, a dark jacket and a lace blouse, and her loose brown hair falls all the way to the floor. Behind her, a stone pillar separates her from the landscape: green hills, a red dirt road and scattered houses. On the right, an empty chair holds a coat.
The light is soft and even, under a greenish sky with pink clouds. The yellows of the skirt echo the red earth beyond. Spot the house with a striped awning and the palm tree at upper left, the round ornaments on the railing, and the white handkerchief on the empty chair.
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
The Arcadópolis Museum has 443 public-domain works in 40 rooms, free to explore in 3D in your browser.