Still the "Colaço"
- Lidia Amarante
- May 29, 2020
- 2 min read
At the time of commemorating the 150th anniversary of Jorge Rey Colaço's birth, I couldn't fail without rendering my simple tribute to a man who was one of the illustrious of Portuguese ceramics.
Jorge Colaço was born in Tangier on February 26, 1862 and died on August 23, 1942, high in Lagoal in Caxias.
The son of the diplomat and painter Jorge José Colaço, he soon discovered his taste for the arts, having trained in the area in Madrid and Paris.
Throughout his artistic life, he has participated in numerous exhibitions in Portugal and abroad and obtained numerous awards and distinctions.
Many are the “voices” that say that Jorge Colaço “cultivated the drawing” and under which I agree, given all the characteristic, technique and message he leaves us through his works and has been the pioneer of graphic design in Portugal whose works were published in The Magazine, in the weekly White and Black, in the Trade of Porto Ilustrado and in the Diário de Noticias Ilustrado.
Colaço, a multifaceted artist, an expert designer, a painter, a caricaturist, and a decorator, was the most notable for the personal taste tiles, introduced new techniques and processes such as the silkscreen applied to tiles which led to being considered by many experts as responsible for this. art in Portugal.
He was able to transpose to the tile a painting applied on colorless glaze already cooked the submission of new cooking, leading to the tile having a watercolor effect with results similar to those of oil painting
His work was marked by the emergence and development of a figurative tile model of historicist and naturalist aesthetic and thematic of late romantic taste.
During his career, he worked at the Sacavém pottery factory, the Lisbon and Coimbra Lusitana ceramics factory, where many of his panels with which he became known were made.
All his work stands out for the quality exposed in composition, light, and color and has as its basis: Portugal, given the diversity and breadth that is allowed, historical, ethnographic, religious, lyrical contexts… an immensity that makes any creative mind seethe
“I dedicated myself to painting tiles? As a preference, I can only attribute to atavistic influences from the land of moiros where I was born. (…) Once in Portugal I could not help waking up, on the first occasion, to the beautiful traditions of art that, although imported, knew how to win national art forums ”
Jorge Colaço 1933
It has left us a legacy of over 1000 tile panels that we can see in Portugal and abroad and which we can easily identify and link to a place, such as the city of Porto through the panels that decorate the beautiful S. Bento station or the Congregados Church and S. Ildefonso Church who give the place an unmistakable beauty and transform it into admiration for those who visit and to contemplate it.
I invite everyone to contemplate the works of Jorge Colaço and to visit the exhibition until 20/6/220 taking place at the National Tile Museum, Lisbon.
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