The work Sepultamento, of Victor Brecheret: dialogues between past and present, its novelty and its legacy

Abstract

The research is based on the analysis of the work Sepultamento (Mise au tombeau), by Italian-born Brazilian sculptor Victor Brecheret (1894-1955), awarded at the Paris Autumn Salon in 1923. At that time, the artist was awarded a scholarship by the State Government of São Paulo - the Artistic Pensionato - having remained in the French capital between 1921 and 1926. In dealing with a traditional theme of the religious imagery universe - the work is a Pietá - the sculptor presents an unconventional formal solution with a strong reference to the Theory of Pure Visibility - created by the German art critic Konrad Fiedler (1841-1895) and systematized by the sculptor of the same nationality Adolf von Hildebrand (1847-1921). This theory is expressed, among other features, by the simplification of form, the unitary apprehension of the figure and the intertwining of planes, the value of verticality and horizontality and the importance of light on the work.These aspects, present in the production of other sculptors of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, show Brecheret's work inserted in the art circuit of his time. In this sense, the research seeks to establish dialogues between Sepultamento and the other works of Brecheret and his contemporaries, as well as with the various representations of the theme of the burial of Christ, elaborated over the centuries. Through the formal analysis between the works we want to discover the similarities that bring them together and the differences that distance them, giving rise to the particularity of Victor Brecheret's work and his legacy for Brazilian sculpture.