The art historian and critic Clarival do Prado Valladares discusses the connections he sees between Genaro de Carvalho’s tapestries and the traditional art of the state of Bahia. The critic insists that Carvalho’s works cannot be mistaken for simple handcrafts, pointing to similarities between the lines and colors of his tapestries and those that can be seen in the ceramic pieces, especially, and folk art produced in the region. He also notes that many of the artist’s tapestries portray the local vegetation, a subject imbued with distinct mythical and religious connotations. The author mentions the difficulties involved in the production of tapestries in Brazil, where the technique never attained the status of an acknowledged tradition.    

In this essay the art historian and critic from Bahia, Clarival do Prado Valladares (1918–83), claims that, in the tapestries produced by the artist Genaro de Carvalho, the European weaving tradition is enriched by the inclusion of aesthetic and symbolic elements derived from the traditional art of the state of Bahia. In the 1940s and 1950s Carvalho—together with artists such as Mário Cravo Jr. and Carlos Bastos—was undoubtedly a major figure in the modernist revival movement that transformed the cultural scene in the state of Bahia. Valladares moved in art circles in Rio de Janeiro and attended the École Nationale de Beaux-Arts (1949–50) in Paris, where he studied under André Lhote and Fernand Léger. In 1955, in Salvador, the state capital, Valladares opened the first tapestry weaving workshop.  

[For more texts by this author, see in the ICAA digital archive “Arte brasileño erudito y arte brasileño popular” (doc. no. 1110759); “A defasagem africana ou crônica do I Festival Mundial de Artes Negras” (doc. no. 1110461); “Hélio de Oliveira, o gravador de Pegis” (doc. no. 1110464); “O negro brasileiro nas artes plásticas” (doc. no. 1110431); “Primitivos, genuínos e arcaicos” (doc. no. 1110439); and the essay co-written with Russell G. Hamilton, “Agnaldo Manoel dos Santos: Origin, Revelation and Death of a Primitive Sculptor” (doc. no. 1110478)].