Djanira: Chronicler of Rites, painter of customs

While the secular world appears more impoverished, saints appear in rich detail, especially in their clothing, referring back to the details of the "Dressmaker." The project, developed by artist Oratorio Djanira, is composed of 10 engravings, inspired by the illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages and accompanied by the poems of Odylio Costa Filho. They were handcrafted and completed with the left hand, since her right had undergone two surgical operations and needed to be rested.

This beautiful set of engravings, representing patron saints and devotional images, is steeped in baroque detail and complex patterns of motifs such as native and calico designs. From the religious to the syncretic—the Studies for Oratorio Djanira were flanked by two other saints in the exhibition. On one side, Saint Sebastian, and the other Saints Cosmas and Damian, both also worshiped in African religions.

Studies of both orixás (African gods representing nature's forces) and tiles contribute to debunking the image of Djanira as a naive artist. The rigor and attention to composition and proportion demonstrate that the artist had already evolved far beyond such a definition.

The union between daily life and religious and mythical experience, and the synergy between artistic and poetic work have made Djanira much more than a naive and/or primitive artist, but a storyteller who presents the image of Brazil and its nationality without being boastfully nationalist. Her "snapshots" synthesize the stylistic preoccupation of Brazilian modern art through the purism of the use of color and the stripping back of forms. Man, as a fundamental image for the composition of her works, balancing between faith and work, and troubles and repose, is transformed into a hero. A man coming out of his own earth. For the art critic Mario Pedrosa, Djanira "was the earth itself." And this earth, as the mother earth, is the one that gives and takes life, but above all, it is the earth that brings men to dreams and acts of heroism.