A first glance at the public sculpture of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro suggests that the strong Brasilian sense of the visual is as evident here as in graffiti and street art, and indeed in everyday life. http://theproverbial.org/2012/07/14/a-brasilian-eye/ From the turn of last century, sculpture decorated functional public buildings …
… as well as the more usual cultural buildings …
… and public monuments to the great …
… and good …
… whether or not the inscription is in Brasilian Portuguese.
At times, the public work is quite exotic …
… while domestic sculptural decoration is sometimes more restrained …
… and at times less so.
A country for which the national symbol is a statue …
… can be expected to have a tradition of studying classical sculpture …
… certainly as plaster copies.
Not just a public monument, domestic sculpture also turns up regularly in museums and markets.
Religious sculpture, like this Jesus and Joseph, is widely used …
… both inside and outside …
… and on a small scale as well as larger than life-size.
Funerary work is also strong; graveyards are a riot of statuary. More pictures to follow. UPDATE – see http://theproverbial.org/2012/11/19/sao-paulo-necropolis/ and http://theproverbial.org/2013/01/30/return-to-necropolis/
Quasi-religious statuary can also be found …
… as can more public celebrations of the arts …
… and of leading figures from other religions and cultures.
Civic leaders …
… and journalists are today’s subjects …
… along with the occasional abstract art work …
… but in a city of rectangular apartment blocks and offices, when the cars stop outside the sculpture museum MuBe (Museu Brasileiro da Escultura http://mube.art.br/ , these are the kinetic, highly-coloured sculptural objects they are stopping to photograph and admire.
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Wow, great photos. I really like the skinny man statute.
Guess you mean the Mahatma (‘Great Soul’) Gandhi. In the northeast of Brasil, the self-help organisation Sons of Gandhi is very strong. If you like skinny, check out Alberto Giacometti http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Giacometti