To find out what has been doing and thinking the author, whose work was recently exhibited in the art galleries of ECT in Brasília and in Rio de Janeiro, besides winning space for an unprecedented exhibition, as for an illustrator, in the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil (Bank of Brazil Cultural Center), we were in his studio in Rio de Janeiro, where, in a meeting testified by the countless characters of fairy tales that surround his drawing board, we gather the opinions mentioned in the text bellow.
As all quality work, the art of Rui de Oliveira can be seen from several angles. In his large kettle blend a select technique, thematic deepening and text fidelity. However nothing equals his concern with the durable, his fascination for the permanent. “What enchants me in children’s stories” says he, “is the possibility to materialize the eternal; what passes from generation to generation and stays in pure state in people’s unconscious”.
“What enchants me in children’s stories is the possibility to materialize the eternal; what passes from generation to generation and stays in pure state in people’s unconscious”
Although he works basically with images, Rui, above all, is considered a devourer of words. He likes to say that, to be a good illustrator, it is necessary to enjoy reading. Although the books, due to a difficult childhood, took time to get at his hands. But when he had access to the books, it was love at first sight. First Monteiro Lobato, later the Portuguese authors, especially Camilo Castelo Branco, and, later on, the classics and the textbooks. Each one, in it way, brought something solid for the construction of his castles. Today, reading for him goes beyond the pleasure of the text – it is a visualization process to his work. The literature, as well as the music, became a contribution to the creation of images. Both of them are essential parts of his daily routine. It is where the artist will restore his vital energies. “But, if I extract from the literature and the music the way of thinking and idealizing, it is from the painting that I draw the way doing”, observes Rui.
To him, the illustrator is a visual story teller, which may or may not come with text. In one of his last works, for instance, he tells the story of “A Bela e A Fera” (Beauty and The Beast) only with graphic resources. “To narrate a traditional story as that, only with graphic resources, it was necessary a great simplification and purification of the form. That means to discover in the particular element, in the case of the image, the universal elements that make the story.” In his version of the story, what makes the Beast humanize itself is not properly the Beauty’s love but his passion for her. The narrative tries to show that this transformation doesn’t happen suddenly, as suggested by some known versions, but slowly “because love is gradual feeling”. For him, the Beast is a being in evolution, while the woman, represented by the Beauty, is the source of balance, “with her talent for joining the parts”.
Text by CELSO POPPE in Correio Filatélico magazine – (September/October, 1994).
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