Rita Loureiro: “primitive” or erudite?

Abstract

The present article aims to answer the question: is Rita Loureiro a primitive or an erudite painter? Such questioning is pertinent because the artist's paintings seem to have characteristics that fit into the primitive style, such as many figures in the pictorial space and elements of popular culture, even being classified as a naïf painter by Hélène Renard. However, Gilda de Mello e Souza suggested that the artist is erudite by listing approximations between the Amazonian painter and Renaissance painters, even though Loureiro did not attend art academies, being self-taught. Based on the reading and analysis of two of her works, we will compare her style with the styles of renowned artists such as Hieronymus Bosch, Dutch painter, and Henri Rousseau, French artist of naïf painting. Our focus will be to analyze the styles through pictorial construction, studying techniques and elements of painting from the analysis of visual syntax based on Donis Dondis. In this way, when we compare the styles of these artists, we will have the following hypothesis: Rita Loureiro is erudite for having a style aligned to the classical and away from the primitive.