Lisbon 1962

Curator: Carlos Botelho’s 1962 watercolor painting, "Lisbon," offers a captivating perspective on the city. Editor: Immediately I’m struck by the materiality—or rather, the apparent lightness. The watercolor gives everything a delicate, almost faded quality. Curator: Precisely. The medium really captures the city's melancholic beauty, doesn't it? There's this feeling that Lisbon is rising, as if on layers, a delicate layered landscape—but is it real or a half forgotten memory? Editor: Absolutely, the technique emphasizes a sense of lived space and working hands. Look closely, and the individual brushstrokes construct these simplified structures that make up Lisbon, suggesting mass production of living. You feel the repetitive labor implicit in a cityscape’s evolution. Curator: It's amazing how he captures this urban essence using such minimalist lines! Notice also the way the buildings stack—they are so alive and slightly leaning over. They create their own shapes—cubist!—like memories fading into each other. I almost imagine the ghost of voices from old Lisbon seeping from the bricks. Editor: I'm with you—the blocks of color also help in thinking through processes and consumption. How does this architectural past shape present life in Lisbon? Those bare trees draw me in... a clear contrast to urban materiality of buildings, pointing at the relationship between urbanization and our extraction of raw materials... Curator: Good eye—the skeletal trees juxtaposed against the density of the buildings give it that feeling of both beauty and loss at the same time. As if Lisbon breathes. We should recall Botelho’s exploration of Lisbon through painting lasted more than fifty years. You can perceive the artist’s feeling toward the landscape. It makes the city an emotion as well as an observable space. Editor: The rooftops, particularly, fascinate me. The bold blocks of color signal density and maybe scarcity of resources that give the built environment its visual logic. And what about people living here, using these roofs as exterior space or viewpoints of this beautiful cityscape? Curator: A picture is only half the story isn’t it? You make me want to dive right into the Lisbon depicted here and see and hear what is there and feel and think what was felt. Thanks for adding that perspective. Editor: Of course, our material and process matter, it gives the real flavor! Thank you!