In this critical analysis of Mário Cravo Jr.’s sculpture, José Valladares focuses on four aspects that he deems fundamental: (1) the expressive specificity of the material; (2) the dynamic construction based on lines, planes, and volume; (3) the ties to organic forms; (4) the implied psychic components. Valladares believes that Cravo Jr. has not fully mastered composition or the use of materials, nor has he wholly developed his style. The degree of naturalism he seeks in his works is undefined. Valladares also criticizes the psychic concerns that surface in his work. In Valladares’s opinion, the artist has not yet grasped the human content with which he works; the work is theatrical and overly inclined to grand effects.

This text analyzes the incipient sculptural work of Mário Cravo Jr. In the late forties and early fifties, Cravo Jr.—along with Carlos Bastos and Genaro de Carvalho—was a key figure in the “modernist” movement that was renewing the visual arts in the artist’s home state of Bahia.

Journalist and critic José [Antonio do Prado] Valladares (1917–59) had a background in museology. He was the director of the Museu do Estado da Bahia (1939–43) and gave classes in aesthetics at the Universidade da Bahia, founded under that name in 1946 and later renamed the Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFBa). He also wrote reviews in the local press. In some cases, he was the first critic to discuss the work of young artists who were introducing Modern art to the region.

[For additional texts on Mário Cravo Jr., see in the ICAA digital archive by Flávio L. Motta “As esculturas de plástico de Mario Cravo Junior” (doc. no. 1111368); by José Geraldo Vieira “Mário Cravo” (doc. no. 1110465); by Maria Leontina Franco “Mário Cravo” (doc. no. 1110698); and by Mário Cravo Jr. himself “Problemática da arte moderna” (doc. no. 1110467)].

[For other texts by José Valladares, see also in the ICAA digital archive “Arte moderna na Bahia” (doc. no. 1110845); “Movimento artístico bahiano” (doc. no. 1110700); “O salão bahiano I: visitantes e instalação” (doc. no. 1110847); “O anjo azul”  (doc. no. 1110844); “Realismo e abstracionismo” (doc. no. 1110848); “A exposição de Carlos Bastos” (doc. no. 1110695); and on Poty Lazzarotto, “As gravuras de Poty” (doc. no. 1110846)].