Henrique César de Araújo Pousão (

Vila Viçosa Vila Viçosa () is a town and a municipality in the District of Évora, Alentejo in Portugal. The population in 2011 was 8,319, in an area of 194.86 km². The municipal holiday is August 16. Parishes Administratively, the municipality is d ...

, 1 January 1859 -

, 20 March 1884) was a

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

painter.

Life

Henrique Pousão was the son of a judge, from a wealthy family of

Alentejo Alentejo ( , ) is a geographical, historical, and cultural region of south–central and southern Portugal. In Portuguese, its name means "beyond () the Tagus river" (''Tejo''). Alentejo includes the regions of Alto Alentejo and Baixo Alent ...

. His early talent manifested at the age of ten, when he copied a portrait of

Rubens Sir Peter Paul Rubens (; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat from the Duchy of Brabant in the Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque traditio ...

. In 1872 he enrolled in the Fine Arts Academy of

Porto Porto or Oporto () is the second-largest city in Portugal, the capital of the Porto District, and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto city proper, which is the entire municipality of Porto, is small compared to its metropol ...

, graduating in 1879 with excellent grades and numerous prizes. After graduation, Pousão travelled to France with fellow student José Júlio de Souza Pinto and studied at the

École des Beaux-arts École des Beaux-Arts (; ) refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The term is associated with the Beaux-Arts style in architecture and city planning that thrived in France and other countries during the late nineteenth century ...

in Paris under

Adolphe Yvon Adolphe Yvon (1817–1893) was a French painter known for his paintings of the Napoleonic Wars. Yvon studied under Paul Delaroche, rose to fame during the Second Empire, then finished his career as a teacher. Career Shortly after the end of th ...

and

Alexandre Cabanel Alexandre Cabanel (; 28 September 1823 – 23 January 1889) was a French painter. He painted historical, classical and religious subjects in the academic style. He was also well known as a portrait painter. According to ''Diccionario Enciclopedi ...

.https://sigarra.up.pt/up/en/p/antigos%20estudantes%20ilustres%20-%20henrique%20pous%C3%A3o But he suffered from

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...

, and under his doctor's advice left Paris for Italy, hoping that the warmer climate might relieve his condition. In 1882 he established a studio in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

on the ''Via dei Portoghesi'', moving later to

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

and

Capri Capri ( , ; ; ) is an island located in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the Sorrento Peninsula, on the south side of the Gulf of Naples in the Campania region of Italy. The main town of Capri that is located on the island shares the name. It has been ...

. Some of his major works were painted during his time in Italy. In 1884, still unwell, he returned to Portugal, where he died that year.

Work

Pousão belonged to the naturalist generation, like António Silva Porto and

João Marques de Oliveira João Joaquim Marques da Silva Oliveira (23 August 1853 – 9 October 1927) was a Portuguese painter in the Naturalist style. Biography Oliveira was born in Porto. In 1864, when he was only eleven, he entered the . Five years later, he enrolled ...

, though his work is more related than theirs to

impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating ...

. In Paris he appears to have been influenced by

Manet A wireless ad hoc network (WANET) or mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a decentralized type of wireless network. The network is ad hoc because it does not rely on a pre-existing infrastructure, such as routers in wired networks or access points ...

, especially in his use of black in equal proportion to other colours. Some critics have seen in his landscape works, rendered in a looser, expressive style, a prelude to

modern art Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the tradi ...

and

abstraction Abstraction in its main sense is a conceptual process wherein general rules and concepts are derived from the usage and classification of specific examples, literal ("real" or "concrete") signifiers, first principles, or other methods. "An abstr ...

. This approach appears in the abstract plains of colour and textures of his 1882 paintings ''Miragem'' and ''Fachada de Porta Soterrada''. Some of his best works were painted on small wood panels no bigger than 100mm x 160mm in a poetic, luminous style. The best collection of his work is at the

National Museum Soares dos Reis Soares dos Reis National Museum ( pt, Museu Nacional Soares dos Reis) is a museum, currently housed in the Carrancas Palace situated in the civil parish of Cedofeita, Santo Ildefonso, Sé, Miragaia, São Nicolau e Vitória, in the northern Portu ...

, in

Gallery

File:Henrique Pousao - Model painting.jpg, Model painting (1880) File:Pousao persianas1.jpg, Shutters (1883) File:Pousao cecilia1.jpg, Cecilia (1882) File:Pousao cansada-1.jpg, Tired (1882) File:Pousao napolitana-1.jpg, Neapolitan (1882) File:Pousao casas-brancas1.jpg, White Houses (1882) File:Pousao st.sauves-1.jpg, St.Sauves (1881) File:Pousao-rapaz napolitano-1a.jpg, Neapolitan Boy (1880s)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pousao, Henrique 1859 births 1884 deaths University of Porto alumni People from Vila Viçosa 19th-century Portuguese painters Portuguese male painters 19th-century male artists 19th-century deaths from tuberculosis Tuberculosis deaths in Portugal