The Cleverness of the Stare

O When Jean Boghici introduced me to Jorge Eduardo almost 15 years ago, the latter was a hyper realistic painter. He made his own photos to be transformed later on in splendid landscape paintings of Rio, framed in old windows. Such a structural framing of the image emphasized the global impact, pointing out certain fragmentary aspects as if “to make last the pleas-ure of the look”, as I stated at that time. I remember the wonderful image of a work of 1985, called “Rainbow in Ipanema”. It was shown as part of the exhibition called “Lumière et magie de Rio” at the Galerie 1900-2000. The curve of the frame of an ogival window followed the rainbow’s course above the ocean’s horizon in such a way that the realism was flowing into the fascinating magic of nature.

Now we have Jorge Eduardo in Paris at Jean Boghici’s stand at FIAC – “Foire Internationale d’Art Moderne et Contemporain”. He exhibits several medium size watercolours (40 x 28cm). These are landscapes and urban scenes, from different places throughout Brazil, capturing the vital saga of its extraordinary diversity. They all have the same common feature, “the cleverness of the stare”, which caught the attention of President Mitterand in the past: the panoramic instinct, the spatial sense, and the concern with the meaningful detail or the structural contrast.

Jorge Eduardo’s watercolours engage in a visual dialogue with the observer. If its author’s look is so talkative, it’s because it expresses the truth of the being, its upbringing and vital experience: this self-taught painter has already been an architect, and afterwards an advertising man. The images he creates are, at the same time, very precisely structured and immediately striking; and their spectacle is not anecdotal but monumental. “Curious Coconut Tree” represents a coconut tree that grows close to the flank of an ancient Portuguese fortress, by the seaside, in Itamaracá, Pernambuco. The silhouette of the tree is oblique to the wall, and it is outlined against the clear blue sky, under a white mass of clouds that blur the horizon line of fine sand. The different elements of the scenery are determined according to a perfect analytic accura-cy, showing small details such as the tiny presence of a bather, the umbrellas, and the boat on the beach.

There is a lot to be said about these details, backgrounds and distance that we sense as a second degree of perception, a remainder of the visual sensation, all these certifying the specific quality of Jorge Eduardo’s work: an immense desire of the stare is in full bloom. And in this desire, the structural mastership of the look joins the passionate love for Brazilian nature. Jorge Eduardo certainly owes such looking power to his upbringing in architec- ture. In the seaside towns of the Northeast of the country (“Ladeira da Misericórdia”, in Olinda; “Forte dos Reis Magos”, in Natal), we can see that the modern skylines of the background contrast with the traditional urbanization of the foreground. It is a discreet but efficient way to draw our attention to modern times as far as reality is concerned. The colonial presence as well as the energy of the commercial districts are not two separate worlds; they are, as a matter of fact, two aspects of the same reality, enclosed by the look in its totality. The global quality of such coexistence is the structural truth about Brazil. To show it under a different angle would be to lie. And Jorge Eduardo’s images do not lie.

When tradition reveals its total coherence, the painter praises it fearlessly, as we can see in the urban scenes of Ouro Preto or Bahia. The angles are chosen in such a way as to enhance the profile or the architectural textures concerning the slopes and the contrasting planimetry of the contour curves. And when a favourable spot is available, such a perspective reflects the perfect organic harmony of the rational view of the structural alignment (the trees on the Avenida Koeller, in Petropolis; the façades of the houses reflected in the Capibaribe River, in Recife).

On the other hand, when modernity bursts in the rush of the urban traffic, Jorge Eduardo’s eye registers the energetic plethora with the merci- less detail of the American photorealists (“Avenida Paulista”, “Marginal do Tietê”, São Paulo).

However, it is when he praises the sensuality of the tropical nature, as in his beach or fishing scenes, or showing urban scenes under the falling rain, that the dialogue between the spectator and the image becomes more intense. His visions of the amazon forest remind me of my historical trip, when climbing the Rio Negro, in 1978, in the company of Franz Krajcberg and Sepp Baendereck. They perfectly illustrate the globalizing potential of the “integral naturalism”, which was the object of my manifest dated August 4th, 1978. I can find again, in these watercolours, the thrill felt when in contact with that extraordinary nature, the Amazonian shock that unchained a very healthy questioning of my whole perceptive system.

Along the last few years, Jorge Eduardo has roamed around the country, from north to south and from east to west. He became its historiographer and visual reporter, resembling the engravers and designers that travelled in the company of the Lisbon court messengers, checking the land and sites explored since the arrival of Cabral in Brazil, in 1500. On the eve of the 500th anniversary of the discovery of Brazil, the watercolourist Jorge Eduardo be-came a national reference. He painted a huge Brazilian flag for the Palácio da Alvorada, in Brasilia, using the “trompe l’oeil” technique. Having it in the background, the President addresses the Nation on important occasions. His book, “Brazil in Watercolours”, will become a mark: its cover illustration shows the most luxurious frontal view of the “Iguaçu Waterfalls”, an image that is unique, exemplary and symbolic at the same time.

Jorge Eduardo, archivist and maintainer of the visual heritage of the Brazilian nation: such is a fair acknowledgement of the love of a man for his huge and beautiful country, which he fully assumes through the cleverness of the stare.

Pierre Restany