Spring Love 2010

Beatriz Milhazes made this vibrant painting, Spring Love, layering acrylic paint with paper and gold leaf. Milhazes came of age artistically in Brazil in the 1980s, a period of transition from military dictatorship to democracy. Her colorful abstractions connect to the exuberance and freedom Brazilians felt at that time. But Milhazes avoids direct political commentary. Her work evokes a sense of Brazilian identity, one that comes not from specific visual symbols but rather from a spirit of cultural synthesis. She reworks European modernist languages, such as geometric abstraction, by mixing them with Latin American traditions of ornamentation. Motifs such as the rose window and the arabesque are also important to her visual vocabulary. The layering of geometric forms is both decorative and expressive. Historians of art consider not only the artist's intentions but the wider cultural and institutional forces in which she works. Resources on Latin American art history help us to understand Milhazes' contribution to contemporary art.