TravelswithCharie

Monument to the Bandereis, Victor Brecheret, 1954, granite Who were the bandeirantes? They were 16th-17th century prospectors who traveled from Sáo Paulo to the hinterlands of Brazil in search of gold. While on these expeditions, they enslaved and killed indigenous people as well as recaptured African slaves who had escaped to the interior. What they did do to earn this monument was to increase the dominion of São Paulo to areas beyond that established by the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas. The monument has been a sore issue with the indigenous people and it came to a head in 2013 when they demonstrated in front of it and spray painted the monument with the words “ bandeirantes assassinos ”. Despite this strong message, there has not been much change on the part of the government to address the issue. In 2016, the monument was doused with red paint and graffiti. The new Mayor at that time took steps to curb these attempts to deface the monument which he described as the “symbol of the city

I Believe in God, 1948, oil on masonite  One of the group of Thirteen Moderns and Neo Realists, Vicente Silva Manansala had the good fortune to study art in Canada, the United States, France and Switzerland through a number of grants he received from UNESCO, the French government and the U.S. State Department. He studied at the Ecole de Beaux Arts in 1950 under the mentorship of Fernand Léger, a renowned French artist and exponent of cubism. Manansala’s early works were influenced by Fernando Amorsolo whose paintings celebrated Philippine landscapes and local culture. Manansala’s oeuvres portray the working class like the fish and candle vendors, the man with the rooster, or the family praying together (above image). I believe in God is a painting completed by Manansala before he dabbled into cubism. The figures and forms are solid depictions of farmers in the rural landscape. Procession, 1948, oil on canvas 1948 was three years after the second world war. The Philippines was quite d

La Pieta, Pablo Atchugarry, 1983, Carrara marble Just as the world was coming out of the pandemic, the Museum of Contemporary Art Atchugarry (MACA) was inaugurated in January 2022 to great fanfare in the rustic town of Manantiales in Uruguay. Here in the wide open spaces are a museum, the studio of Atchugarry, a permanent gallery for his works, an amphitheater, a chapel, an art store, and seventy five pieces of sculpture scattered throughout the well-groomed grounds. Both local and international artists are represented in the Park and in the Museum. A day at the park is exactly what I needed after a big lunch at the seaside town of Jose Ignacio. Atchugarry was born in Montevideo and was encouraged by his parents to dabble in the arts at an early age. He had his first art exhibition at eleven years of age. As he matured and after trips abroad, he began to explore the use of various medium for his works including marble which he found in Italy and which is the material he uses the most f

Lucia Condrea Art (Arta Condrea) In the small, peaceful town of Moldovita, a monastery with painted frescoes on its outer walls remains as vibrant as it was in the 16th century. It is one of eight monasteries in the Bucovina area designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It’s no wonder that artists like Lucia Condrea have flourished in these parts when the source of inspiration to paint and create beautiful things are in their neighborhood. Lucia Condrea has decorated eggs for decades and has won many awards for her artistry. At the International Painted Egg Museum that she established in Moldovita, there are at least 15,000 of these precious eggs. Over the years, Condrea’s technique has evolved into fourteen artistic styles for egg ornamentation. They are: relief colored wax, graphics from batik technique in black and white, lacery, antique works, abstract painting, old Hutul  sewing patterns using wax and natural colors, chromatic diversification, cubism in 3D, patterns from old ca