Third piece based on the Teatro Brasileiro de Comédia. Each canvas illustrates at least one actress, one director and one play.
Cacilda Becker played Margarite Gauthier in the play La Dame aux Cameliá, by Alexandre Dumas, fils,, directed by Luciano Salce in 1951. The production had sumptuous dresses and scenery created by Aldo Calvo.
Artists who decide to work on the story by Dumas usually choose to focus on the subject of the courtesan and society. But in my case, another subject drew my attention even more: the character in the story suffers of tuberculosis, a disease that walks hand in hand with the history of my mother's family. My great granfather had a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients in Trieste, Italy, which he had to sell cheap because of the World War II, before coming to Brazil. His grandaughter, my mother, took an interest in the story and followed the medical carrer, currently becoming a prestigious researcher of the disease, which according to her kills annually more than AIDS, even though it has a cure.
This time, the excerpts of the program had company: images of the my great grandfather's sanatorium and cultures of the tuberculosis bacilus that I got from my mother. The transfer technique also got a new experiment: a new transfer process that didn't leave me completely satisfied, but was worth the experience.
The painting is surrounded by four flowers which, in my research into the story, appear to be connected to the character: the camelia in the romance's title, the rose in the name of the real courtesan who inspired Dumas, the daisy in the name of his fictional character and the violet in the name given to that character in the adaptation for Verdi's opera.
La Dame aux Camelia - Cacilda Becker
March 2010
Oil and transfer on canvas
100 x 80 cm
Click to see details of the transfers:
Comentários