The Last Bastion

The impact of Pablo Picasso's "Guernica" on Cándido Portinari is remarkable, but in the same way that this and many other works by Picasso constitute an important reference for several Latin American artists of his generation: Diego Rivera, Wifredo Lam, Antonio Berni, Rufino Tamayo, Alejandro Obregón, among others. Portinari first saw this painting in New York, in 1939, when he arrived in the United States for a work stay. The drawing "O último baluarte" is the only pen sketch for the painting "Último baluarte" and the largest of the four existing ones. Drawn with a shading of fine stripes that models the volumes and figures and structures the planes of the action, the scene takes place in an open, somewhat dreamlike landscape, marked by buildings lined up on the horizon, without doors or windows. In the central composition -a large triangle-, a woman, clinging to her son, wields her umbrella, like a bulwark, against a motorcycle driven by a monstrous, threatening bird. The scene shows the triumph of the mother over the monster, the destroyed machine and a male figure beneath it, evoking a female version of St. George and the dragon, of the struggle between good and evil.