All About Discovery of Gold by Candido Portinari

Title of Artwork: “Discovery of Gold”

Artwork by Candido Portinari

Year Created 1941

Summary of Discovery of Gold

The Ministry frescoes and the World’s Fair decorations were both broken by Portinari in Discovery of Gold. In favour of a single boat with a single group of people, he discarded his initial concept of several boats swaying in a twisting river.

All About Discovery of Gold

Similarly to the first painting in the Hispanic Room, he alternated between a distant overall view and a more detailed close-up of a specific event. Violent energy pervades both works; both depict the tense moment of discovery; both are ecstatically exultant.

A more frantic pattern is introduced by the sign of the worker’s hand, which is lifted, gesticulating and grabbing.

Impressionistically coloured, with a skiff, miners’ hair, a glint of gold, and a tiny gleaming fish all painted in wildly disjointed strokes of colour, this painting represents Portinari’s most radical departure from his earlier mural style, which had been based on a series of experimental oils centred around the theme of a shipwreck painted in the summer of 1941.

Information Citations

En.wikipedia.org, https://en.wikipedia.org/.