A Norwegian in the tropics

Book analyzes the work of Alfredo Andersen, a landscape artist known as the "father of painting" in Paraná, Brazil.

By Claudia Izique

Agência FAPESP – In 1893 Alfred Emil Andersen (1860-1935), a young Norwegian painter, fell in love with Paraná, in Brazil, when the ship on which he was traveling to Buenos Aires put into the Port of Paranaguá for a brief stopover. He decided to stay. Andersen married a descendant of the Carijó Indians, gave painting classes, and painted portraits of the local burghers, who welcomed him into the community.

Today, Alfredo Andersen, as he is now known, is remembered as Paraná’s foremost painter, and his former home is a museum. His paintings are regional references, and his career is considered “fertile terrain for research in the sociology of art,” according to Amélia Siegel Corrêa, author of Alfredo Andersen – Retratos e Paisagens de um Norueguês Caboclo.

The book, published with support from FAPESP, is based on the PhD thesis defended by Corrêa at the University of São Paulo’s School of Philosophy, Letters & Human Sciences (FFLCH-USP), under the supervision of Leopoldo Garcia Pinto Waizbort and with a scholarship from FAPESP. “The aim was to understand the social and historical foundations for Andersen’s career as an artist,” Corrêa said. The book, in which she also analyzes the artist’s work, will be launched on August 6 at Livraria Cultura in Curitiba, the capital of Paraná State.

Corrêa’s bibliographical research extended as far as Norway, where Andersen was born to a ship’s captain in the merchant marine and a housewife, to “find out as much as possible about his artistic training and identity”.

The book’s first two chapters set out the painter’s biography and artistic career. He began attending drawing classes at the age of 14 and soon specialized in portrait and landscape painting, both traditional in Norway and strongly influenced by realism.

Andersen sold his first painting in 1888. Five of the ten paintings on show at a solo exhibition in 1891 were sold. However, his art developed on the “periphery” of European culture, whose epicenter was Paris and Impressionism. “Naturalistic painting was on the wane in Europe as the avant-garde gained ground, but it was well received in southern Brazil,” Corrêa writes.

A promising country

This was the baggage with which Andersen stepped onto Brazilian soil. He had been here before, on a trip several years earlier with his father. “It made sense to settle in a promising country for a man who was already over thirty and whose artistic career was threatened with failure,” Corrêa notes.

Chapter three analyzes the painter’s Brazilian phase, especially his portraits, in order to “apprehend from the social context and the networks of relationships produced” how art, culture and politics were interwoven in Paraná, as well as Andersen’s position in this setting.

Photography, then becoming popular in Brazil, was Andersen’s ally inasmuch as he accepted commissions to paint people’s portraits from photographs. “He used to say it was easier to be a painter than a photographer,” Corrêa writes. He painted according to the taste of his customers: merchants, port officials in Paranaguá, railway employees and yerba mate growers, for whom a portrait was a status symbol. This work enabled him to earn a living. On moving to Curitiba, he extended his circle to include literati and politicians.

In the fourth chapter the author investigates Andersen’s landscapes, for which he became most widely known. He painted the coastline, the port, the Rocio neighborhood, and the pine woods characteristic of the local scenery. “A change in the painter’s facture, his handling of paint and execution, can be observed. This arose from his contact with other Brazilian landscape painters and from market pressure,” she writes.

Chapter five unfolds against a Belle Époque background in Curitiba following the abolition of the monarchy and the advent of republican government in 1889. The province of Paraná was given its first constitution and prospered thanks to the growth of the yerba mate and timber industries. The arts flourished and the first exhibitions were held, as well as initial efforts to establish a college of music and fine arts, although these did not come to fruition until 1948.

In the last chapter Corrêa explores Andersen’s position in this new environment, focusing on his marriage to an Amerindian and his status as a foreigner. “We enter the painter’s home through his paintings, including the affectionate portraits he painted of his family,” she writes, suggesting that these genre scenes are the most authorial facet of his production. “They show his daily life as he passed the point of no return on his voyage into the light and culture of Brazil.”

Alfredo Andersen – Retratos e paisagens de um norueguês caboclo
Author: Amélia Siegel Corrêa
Publisher: Alameda
Year: 2014
Pages: 380