Notícia violentada 1948

Marcelino Vespeira’s painting, Notícia violentada, presents us with a surreal landscape, a nude form emerging from the horizon. There is a precision of tone and line here, and yet Vespeira is doing something so unsettling. The fleshy color of the breast merges with the claw forms that burst above. We can feel the texture of the canvas beneath a thin layer of paint. If you look closely at the tail, you’ll see the way Vespeira has layered different tones of brown and black to build this strange, almost furry appendage. The tail points downwards, bisecting the landscape. What is this road? The addition of the telegraph poles creates a feeling of unease and entrapment. Vespeira lived through Portugal’s dictatorship, so this painting suggests a sense of distorted reality and maybe even trauma. You can see similar approaches to surrealism in the work of Max Ernst or even Leonora Carrington. It’s as though Vespeira is using a dreamlike language to express something that is otherwise unspeakable.