Mulher Chorando 1944

Candido Portinari made this painting, Mulher Chorando, with oils, layering sorrow upon sorrow. Look at the hands. They’re massive, shielding the face, knuckles white with tension. The paint is thick, like grief made solid, each brushstroke a visible mark of the artist's struggle to capture such raw emotion. You can almost feel the weight of the woman’s despair, see the world through her blurred vision. I imagine Portinari, wrestling with the canvas, trying to give form to the unyielding pain that sits in the body. Those tears aren't just tears; they're like gashes of red, and the child seems to cling, mirroring her sorrow. Portinari’s earlier work often celebrated the everyday life of Brazilian workers, but here, in this painting, he confronts something much darker, more universal. We see echoes of Käthe Kollwitz, maybe even Picasso’s weeping women. Painting can be a holding space, a way to express all the tough stuff and give it shape. It’s an ongoing conversation, each artist building upon the last, daring to dive into the messy, unresolved aspects of being human.