16/07/2019

João Candido Portinari speaks about his father at a meeting at IMPA.

Comprising poems, engravings, paintings, and testimonials from national and international artists and political figures, the lecture “The Portinari Project: Science and Art Team Up Together to Help Cultural Projects” brought emotion to the first day of the Brazil-France Meeting . In it, mathematician João Candido Portinari presented the project to which he has dedicated himself for 40 years: keeping alive the work of his father, the painter Candido Portinari (1903-1962), one of the leading figures in the visual arts in Brazil.

The connection with the audience was established within the first few minutes of the presentation. João Candido had a classic French song sung in the Ricardo Mañé auditorium while projecting old photographs from his time as a university student. "As we get older, we become more sentimental," he said.

Created in 1979 in the Mathematics Department of the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio (PUC-Rio), the Portinari Project was born from a paradox that bothered the painter's heir. How could an artist with such diverse works, portraying different social fabrics of Brazil, have his paintings practically restricted to private collections, far from the people? At the time, it was estimated that 95% of the painter's canvases were not accessible to the general public.

The discomfort was the driving force behind the start of an intense undertaking to track, catalog, and democratize access to Portinari's paintings. In the nearly four decades that followed, the project has already managed to gather at least 5,000 paintings and 25,000 documents related to the artist's work and life, in addition to promoting the dissemination of this collection throughout the country and the world.

In this undertaking, the application of high technology and scientific methods from the field of Mathematics was crucial at different stages of the project, stated João Candido.

One of the greatest contributions of mathematics to the program was the development of tools for verifying the authenticity of the works. Since the late 1990s, computer mathematicians at PUC-Rio have been analyzing microscopic traces of the painter's canvases, such as the thickness of the paint on his paintings or the curves created by the movement of the brushes. These characteristics are recorded in the computers' memory, creating a kind of calligraphy of the artist, which allows for the meticulous identification of the works.

Although the loss of Petrobras' sponsorship interrupted the work of the PUC-Rio team, Professor Nivio Ziviani, from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), is carrying out another program in collaboration with the Portinari Project. Together with the team, the mathematician is developing a neural network (machine learning) software that will recognize, among the more than 5,000 works in the collection, which ones are by Portinari and which ones are not.

The year 2019 marks the 40th anniversary of the Portinari Project – and there are plenty of reasons to celebrate. In June, a partnership with Google Arts & Culture and five other cultural institutions made a vast collection about the painter available online. Simply access the platform to contemplate more than 5,000 works of art, thousands of letters and documents from his personal archive, and selected stories about the painter's art, life, and legacy.

After the lecture, João Candido expressed satisfaction in bringing the content to the students and colleagues at IMPA.

“I have an immense sentimental and emotional connection with IMPA because I saw this institute being born. I was able to witness the extraordinary work done by this group of mathematicians, such as Lindolfo Carvalho Dias, Maurício Peixoto, and Jacob Palis, in creating this gem. Every time I have the opportunity to speak here, I spend almost a week without sleep, preparing the work with great care and dedication.”

This affection can also be seen on the walls of the IMPA library, where 11 reproductions of Portinari's works are displayed. Gifts from the painter's only son to Jacob Palis, then director-general of IMPA, the works are exhibited in the reading room and other spaces in the library.

A longtime friend of João Candido Portinari, Palis left a suggestion for the project's creator: "Why not bring the 'War and Peace' panel back to Rio?"