Moema (Victor Meirelles) on:
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Moema is an 
oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...
on canvas created in 1866 by Brazilian artist Victor Meirelles. It depicts the homonym character from the epic poem Caramuru
Caramuru (-1557) was the Tupi name of the Portuguese colonist Diogo Álvares Correia, who is notable for being the first European to establish contact with the native Tupinambá population in modern-day Brazil and was instrumental in the early co ...
(1781), by Santa Rita Durão. The work does not depict a scene from the poem, but instead Meirelles's personal interpretation of the character's fate, submerging into the water after being rejected by Caramuru.
The painting was shown for the first time in 1866, in the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts
The Russian Academy of Arts, informally known as the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts, was an art academy in Saint Petersburg, founded in 1757 by the founder of the Imperial Moscow University Ivan Shuvalov under the name ''Academy of the Thre ...
. It is a part of the collection of the São Paulo Museum of Art
The São Paulo Museum of Art ( pt, Museu de Arte de São Paulo, or ') is an art museum located on Paulista Avenue in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. It is well known for its headquarters, a 1968 concrete and glass structure designed by Lina Bo B ...
since 1947. Under Beatriz Pimenta Camargo's presidency, the museum obtained funds for the restoration of the painting, considered to be one of the most important ones in its collection.
A preparatory sketch created before the actual painting shows Moema in a different position, as well as a group of natives in the background which are more prominent than the group in the finished painting's background.
Reception
Counselor Tomaz Gomes dos Santos, director of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts, stated: The painting and Meirelles himself also received praise from the Baron Homem de Melo:References
External links
* {{19C-painting-stub Paintings in the collection of the São Paulo Museum of Art 1866 paintings Paintings by Victor Meirelles