MANUEL CASAL AGUIAR. Condi~ao: viajante

1.Passado Do conhec1mento da exposic;:ao apresentada por Manuel Casal Aguiar na Galeria do Palacio, no Porto, em Setembro de 2003, onde o pintor reuniu um coniunto vasto de pintura e fotografia sob o tema da Oceania, decorre este texto. Sabe-se que Manuel Casal Aguiar inibe a escrita ou o comentano amplo sobre a sua obra. Refrac­tario a teses extensas sobre o seu trabalho e a longos discursos interpretativos, o pintor pertence ao grupo de art1stas que advoga a cegueira criti­ca e o silencio sabio, ao grupo daqueles para quern, perante o visto, o verbo e excessive. E pois um texto desenrolado numa atitude prudente, aquele que se segue, e ja e acto de coragem faze-lo coexistir com um de Julio Resende, claro e limpido como diz ser a pintura de Manuel Casal Aguiar Algumas conversas que tiveram lugar durante a exposic;:ao, a experienc1a continuada da observa­c;:ao das pec;:as e breves trocas de impress6es posteriores, ajudaram a estruturar uma aborda­gem global de um ciclo de trabalhos que, sendo localizado no tempo, acaba por atravessar todo o traiecto do artista. Oceania resultou de uma estad,a de Manuel Casal Aguiar em Timor nos anos 60, para cumpm o servic;:o militar, estadia em que realizou fotogra­fias e filmes e durante a qual recolheu e registou os primeiros aspectos desenvolvidos, muitos anos mais tarde, em pinturas. A gestac;:ao e a maturac;:ao de sinais e sfmbolos, sedimentados pelo tempo e pela relac;:ao com outros lugares, seriam lentas e a sua concretizac;:ao chegaria apenas entre 1995 e 2003. Manuel Casal Aguiar nao partiu como pintor para a terra, entao portuguesa, de Timor; mas pode dizer-se que o pintor e o fot6grafo documentados por este livro nasceram ali. Que profunda impres­sao lhe tera causado esse territ6rio, essa atmos­fera, essa vasta parte do mundo a que chamam Oceania para nao ma1s a largar e de1a se alimen­tar durante anos e anos! Depois do regresso a Portugal, Manuel Casal Aguiar inscreveu-se na Escola Superior de Belas Artes do Porto para se

MANUEL CASAL AGUIAR. Condition: traveller

1. The past This text results from the knowledge of the exhibi­tion shown by Manuel Casal Aguiar in Galena do Palacio, in Porto, in September 2003, in which the painter gathered a vast collection of paintings and photographs on the theme of Oceania. It is well known that Casal Aguiar is averse to writ­ing or extensive commentary about his work Being resistant to lengthy theses on his work and long interpretative discourse, he belongs to that group of artists who advocate critical blindness and wise silence, the group of those for whom. presented with the visible ob1ect, the word is superfluous. This. therefore, is a text gwded by a prudent attitude and it 1s danng enough to make 1t co-exist with one by Julio de Resende, as clear and transparent as, in his own words, is the paint­ing of Manuel Casal Aguiar. A number of conversations that took place during the exhibition, the on-going expenence gained from observing the works and some brief exchan­ges of ideas subsequently. all helped to structure a global approach to a cycle of works which. though situated in time, eventually covers the whole of Casal Aguiar's career. Oceania resulted from when Casal Agwar was in Timor in the 1960s to fulfil his military service Dur­ing this time he took photographs and films and gathered and recorded the first elements that many years later he would develop into painting. The con­ception and maturing of signs and symbols, solidi­fied by time and the relationship with other places, would be slow and their coming into fruition would only happen between 1995 and 2003. Manuel Casal Aguiar did not set out as a painter to the then Portuguese land of East Timor but it can be said that the painter and photographer documented in this book were born there What a deep 1mpnnt this territory, this atmosphere, this broad part of the world they call Oceania must have left on him. never to abandon him and to feed him for years and years! On his return to Portugal, he enrolled at the Opor­to Fine Arts School to train as a painter Mean-

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formar em Pintura, enquanto os vestfgios e as marcas daquela estadia permaneciam adormeci­dos a espera do momenta certo para despertar. E pois um projecto autobiografico que nos apre­senta o pintor e, embora se saiba que toda a cria­c;:ao e autobiografica, o factor pessoal tern, neste programa, uma dimensao perfeitamente clara que um modelo pict6rico baseado na reflexao, na consciencia individual e no conhecimento pr6prio, testemunha.

2. Passado ainda A condic;:ao de viajante assumida por Manuel Casal Aguiar motivou uma entrega a territ6rios vir­gens na sua substancia cultural e a rendic;:ao aos sentidos e motivos de misterio, ocultos em tradi­c;:6es remotas. A terra longinqua desenhava-se em todo o fascinio da sua geografia primordial, surpreendida num tempo sem tempo. A ideia de paraiso perdido embrenha-se em todo o projecto a que o pintor se dedicou ao longo do tempo, pri­meiro na descoberta e depois no tratamento gra­dual propiciado pela formac;:ao cultural e artistica entretanto adquirida. lnspiradora das mais diferentes manifestac;:6es criativas e analises te6ricas, na literatura, nas artes plasticas, na hist6ria e na antropologia, esta ideia de parafso perdido transporta-nos para os finais do seculo XIX, para uma altura em que paragens afastadas da confortavel civilizac;:ao oci­dental, essa mesma que caminhava num pro­gresso regular e irreversfvel, foram procuradas e abordadas por escritores e artistas. Do seio desta legiao que dialogou de modo privilegiado com outros estadios de civilizac;:ao destaca-se, indubi­tavelmente, Gauguin. A sua permanencia na Poli­nesia francesa entre os primeiros anos da decada de 90 do seculo XIX e 1903, data da sua morte, transformou radicalmente a sua pintura e modifi­cou o curso da arte ocidental. Se destacamos Gauguin do seio outros artistas para quern a via­gem foi absolutamente decisiva na investigac;:ao de novas caminhos, e porque a Oceania foi tam­bem o cenario da sua busca do parafso e porque a sua sombra paira sabre algumas das soluc;:6es formais e tecnicas escolhidas por Manuel Casal

while the traces and marks of that stay remained dormant, waiting for the right moment to wake up. It is thus an autobiographical project that the painter presents to us and, although all creation is admittedly autobiographical, the personal factor has, in this programme, a perfectly clear dimen­sion, as testified by a pictorial model based on reflection, individual awareness and first-hand knowledge.

2. Still in the past The status of traveller claimed by Casal Aguiar brought about a submission to untouched territo­ries in their cultural substance and the surrender to the senses and motives of mystery hidden in remote traditions. The faraway land would gain shape in the fascination of its primitive geography, caught unawares in a time without time. The idea of a lost paradise imbues the whole project to which Casal Aguiar devoted himself over the years, first in the discovery and then in the grad­ual treatment that the cultural and artistic training he had acquired in the meantime made possible. This idea of a lost paradise, which inspired the most diverse creative manifestations and theoret­ical analyses in literature, plastic arts, history and anthropology, takes us into the late 19th Century, to a time when parts of the world away from the comforts of Western civilisation, which was advancing at a regular and irreversible pace, were sought out and used by writers and artists. From this legion who enjoyed a privileged dialogue with other stages of civilisation, Gauguin unquestion­ably stands out. His period in French Polynesia, from the early 1890s to his death in 1903, changed both his painting and the course of West­ern art dramatically. If we isolate Gauguin from other artists for whom the journey was absolutely decisive in the exploration of other ways, it is because Oceania was a/so the setting for his search for paradise, and because his shadow hangs over some of the formal and technical solu­tions adopted by Casal Aguiar, in an appropriation that is so characteristic of today's art. If the clarity of his palette testifies to the imperatives of the region's geography and atmosphere, it also

Aguiar, numa apropria9ao tao caracteristica da arte dos nossos dias. Se a claridade da sua pale­ta atesta os imperatives da geografia e da atmos­fera da regiao, tambem imp6em indubitavelmente o legado de Gauguin. Eis porque Julio Resende afirma a existencia dos "lexicos e iconografias de todos os pintores do mundo". Mas bastaria pensar na importancia de viagens come a de Matisse a Marrocos na segunda deca­da do seculo XX ou, no case portugues, nas via­gens de Pousao a Italia ou ainda nas de Julio Resende ao Brasil na decada de 70, para enten­der o alcance e as consequencias retiradas de visitas mais ou menos prolongadas a regi6es e culturas tidas come excentricas. E claro que tambem houve pintores que nunca sairam do mesmo sitio, fisicamente ou mental­mente falando: alguns nunca abandonaram o seu corpo, come Frida Khalo; outros nunca deixaram o seu atelier, come Giorgio Morandi. E outros, tendo viajado pelo mundo cartografado sempre preferiram a protec9ao das imagens nunca vistas. Hoje as viagens nae tern ja o papel que assumi­ram no final do seculo XIX e em todo o periodo modernista, quando o cosmopolitismo era condi-9ao para adquirir informa9ao, pretextos e causas para criar; hoje a circula9ao cultural faz-se per outras vias, as viagens percorrem os mapas ciberneticos e nae a geografia ffsica e a jornada pode nae representar transforma9ao, assistindo­se, per vezes, a cases em que o trabalho resul­tante apresenta uma esperada uniformidade e a partilha das mesmas preocupa96es, quer se trate de um nova-iorquino, de um sueco, de um tunisi­no ou de um australiano. Entre a condi9ao de desconhecidos e o mite de perdidos, os paraisos contribuiram para a renova­<;:ao da pintura-pintura, obrigaram os pintores a encontrar novas rumos coincidentes com a pure­za ancestral das manifesta96es rituais e culturais que presenciavam. Muito do que propunham e ofereciam estes lugares, resolveu-se em termos eticos e empenho vivencial. De igual mode enre­dado na vida e no mundo mostrou-se ManuelCa­sal Aguiar, para quern o comprometimento exis­tencial se revela inseparavel das op96es artisticas

unmistakably enforces Gauguin's legacy. This is why Julio Resende claims the presence of the "lexicons and iconographies of every painter in the world". It would be enough, though, to think about the importance of such travels as Matisse's to Moroc­co, in the second decade of the 20th Century or, in the case of the Portuguese, Pousao's travels to Italy or Julio Resende's to Brazil in the 1970s, to understand the extent and the consequences of more or less lengthy visits to regions and cultures that are seen as eccentric. There were, of course, painters who never left one place, either in physical or mental terms: some never abandoned their bodies, like Frida Kah/a; others never left their studio, like Giorgio Morandi. And others, having travelled the chartered world, have always preferred the protection of never­seen images. Today travels no longer have the role they had in the late 19th Century and through­out the whole of the modernist period, when cos­mopolitanism was a condition for obtaining infor­mation, pretexts and motives to create; today, culture gets around in other ways, travelling is done through cybernetic maps and not physical geography and the journey may not mean trans­formation, as in those cases we sometimes see in which the resulting work displays a predictable uniformity and the same shared concerns, whether its author is a New Yorker, a Swede, a Tunisian or an Australian. Paradises, with their status of being unknown and with their myth of being lost, have contributed to the renewal of painting for painting's sake, and have forced painters to find new courses concur­ring with the ancestral purity of the ritual and cul­tural manifestations they witnessed. Much of what these places proposed and offered was solved in ethical terms and through experiential commit­ment. In the same way, Casal Aguiar, entangled in life and in the world, and for whom the engage­ment with existence is inseparable from the artis­tic choices he would gradually define, revealed himself The journey, both political and poetic, became a journey of existence.

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que lentamente definiria. A viagem, polftica e poe­tica, tomou-se numa viagem da existencia. Esta hist6ria conta ja com personagens como Gauguin e os pintores da aventura, para la do seu protagonista. E o memento de fazer entrar outra personagem: Ruy Cinalli cuja escolha anda asso­ciada a uma pintura enxuta e essencial que e como a sua poesia, tambem ela baseada num saber de experiencia feito, fundada em praticas do lugar e cumplicidades de diferentes graus com os habitantes e seus m1tos e sfmbolos. Fui portanto ler e reler Ruy Cinatti, o de Um Can­cioneiro para Timor e Paisagens Timorenses com Vultos' (este postumamente publicado). Depare1 ainda com um postacio crft1co assinado por Jorge Fazenda Lourenc;:o£ em que o poeta e referido como um criador de condic;:ao n6mada e errante pred1sposto a aventura da 1nvestJgac;:ao e a des­coberta de outros mundos - o da poesia incluido. 0 paralelo com o caso de Manuel Casal Aguiar pareceu-me tao flagrante que nao res1sti a men­cionar a interpretac;:ao. E 1ns1sto ao citar o mesmo texto sabre Cinatt1 onde se diz ser a sua poesia um manifesto da "presenc;:a (um testemunho) sem pertenc;:a (a este mundo)". Nao sera a pmtura de Casal Aguiar uma expressao privilegiada da sua presen<;a em "lugares que o sol nascente ve pri­meiro" sem que tal implique a perten<;a exclusiva a Oceania, mas, pelo contrario, a partilha de outros lugares, do Oriente ao Ocidente, engloba­dos os lugares da pintura e da sua hist6ria Se fui ler e reler Ruy Cmatt:, tambem fui ver e observar art1stas que relacionaram fotografia e pintura, levada pelo trabalho desenvolvido por Manuel Casal Aguiar nestes dois domfnios. Um fot6grafo' chama a maquina fotografica "ancora do tempo" porque ludo o que ela regista fica preso a um instante circunstancial - momen­tos, imagens num tempo e num espac;:o suspen­sos. No mesmo sentido, chama a fotografia espe­lho magico da realidade por consegu·r realizar uma proeza que carrega em s1 algo de magfco -e fixar a realidade ou a 1magem dela. Quando desembarcou em Timar, Manuel Casal Aguiar tinha consigo uma maquina fotografica com um t1po de um filme acabado de aparecer no

This story already includes, besides its leading actor characters such as Gauguin and the adven­ture painters. The moment has come to introduce another character: Ruy Cinatt1 chosen because he is associated with a spare, essential painting which, like his poetry, is based on a knowledge gathered from experience, founded on local prac­tices and on complicity at different levels with the natives and their myths and symbols. I have therefore read and re-read Ruy Cinattl, of Um Cancioneiro para Timar (''.A Songbook for Timor'? and Pa1sagens Timorenses com Vultos ("Timorese Landscapes with Figures'? (the latter published posthumously). I also came across a cnt­ical afterword by Jorge Fazenda Lourenrp in which the poet 1s described as a nomadic and erring cre­ator, prone to the adventure of exploration and the discovery of other worlds - that of poetry included. The parallel with Casal Aguiar seemed to me so striking that I could not resist mentioning this inter­pretation. And I quote again from the same text about Cinatti which says his poetry is a manffest of the "presence (a testimony) without belonging (to this world)" Would Casal Aguiar's painting not be a privileged expression of his presence in ''places first seen by the rising sun", without it implying an exclu­sive belonging to Oceania, but rather the sharing of other places, from East to West, including those of painting and its history? I did read and re-read Ruy Cinatti, but I also went to see and observe artists who have associated photography and painting, guided by the work done by Manuel Casal Aguiar in these two fields. One photographer' calls the camera an "anchor of time" because everythtng it records remains attached to a circumstantial instant - moments. images suspended in a time and a space Like­wise he calls photography the magic mirror of reality for achieving a feat that bears something magical - the fixing of reality or its image When he disembarked in East Timor, Casal Aguiar had with him a camera with a type of film, recently launched on the market - a slide film, which enabled him to make maximum use of this portable, utilitarian advantage of photography that brings every place within reach of every subject.

mercado, de slides, que lhe permit1u t1rar o maxi­mo partido dessa vantagem portatil e utilitaria da fotografia que coloca todos os lugares ao alcance de todos os sujeitos. Revelai;ao e fixai;ao de um territ6rio desconhecido ao qual se agregava uma dimensao documental que, com o decorrer do tempo, teria ainda mais valor do que a pr6pria realidade, entretanto ja profundamente alterada ou mesmo desaparec1da. Esse caracter docu­mental nao anula a dimensao comummente acei­te da subjectividade da fotografia que marnfesta nas escolhas de motives, nos enquadramentos, na lluminai;ao, uma triagem pessoal da realidade e uma visao ideol6gica do mundo. Situada no come90 do projecto artistico de Manuel Casal Aguiar e mstalada em perfe1ta cor­respondencia com a pintura, a fotografia obriga a repensar o passado do relac1onamento entre ambos os domirnos e as varia96es de cada uma das linguagens e dos aspectos tecnicos respecti­vos. Num primeiro modelo de relacionamento a foto­grafia era util.zada como registo preliminar de aspectos que seriam pintados de forma ma1s ela­borada e prolongada. Era c6modo fotografar uma figura antes de a retratar pela pintura fotografar uma paisagem, antes de a pintar no conforto e na durai;ao do atelier; fotografar um acontec1mento etemero que de outra forma nao chegaria a cele­brai;ao pintada. Num segundo modelo, a fotografia funcionava como suporte literal de pintura· era retocada e colorida atraves de processes simples de pintura sobre fotografia que chegou a ter honras de acti­vidade aut6noma e a fazer aparecer, em catalo­gos das primeiras decadas do seculo, participan­tes identificados como Pintores de Fotografia. Esta visao alargou-se a medida das altera96es dos procedimentos tecnicos. Hoje ha interven-96es que nao sao mera pintura: a fotografia pode ser raspada, riscada, rasgada, colada, 1mpressa pelos mais variados processes, numa palavra, manipulada Num terceiro modelo, que e o inverse do anterior, a fotografia recorre a acess6rios tecnicos da pin­tura, do desenho ou da aguarela. Esta aci;ao gera

The revelation and recording of an unknown terri­tory, to which a documentary dimension was added, would become. over time, even more valu­able than reality itself which may be changed in the meantime, or even gone. This documentary nature does not cancel the currently accepted dimension of the subjectivity of photography which displays in the choice of motive, in the frames, in the lighting, a personal selection of reality and an ideological vision of the world. Coming at the beginning of Casal Aguiar's artistic career. and in perfect correspondence with his painting, photography leads to a rethinking of the past in the relationship between both fields and the variations of each language and Ifs technical aspects. In a first model of relationship, photography was used as a preltminary record of aspects that would be painted in a more elaborate and extensive way It used to be convenient to photograph a figure before painting it; to photograph a landscape before painting it in the comfort and permanence of the stu­dio; to photograph a passing event which otherwise would not reach painted celebration. In a second model, photography worked as a lit­eral support for painting: it was retouched and coloured through the simple process of painting over the photograph, and was even accorded the honour of being an autonomous act1v1ty and gave rise, in catalogues from the early decades of the century, to practitioners identified as Painters of Photography This vision expanded to conform with changing technical procedures. Today, there are techniques that do not merely pertain to paint­ing. photographs can be scraped, scratched, torn, glued and printed by the most varied processes: in a word, manipulated. In a th"d model, which is the reverse of the previ­ous one, photography resorts to the technical accessories of painting, drawing or watercolour. This practice gives rise to a sort of Pictonal Pho­tography. Certain photographers use watercolour paper in this way, taking advantage of the textures provided by this support and even the luminosity effects it offers to enhance or cancel. Manuel Casal Aguiar chose to preserve the rela­tive autonomy of photography and painting with-

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uma especie de Fotografia Pictural. E assim que certos fot6grafos utilizam papel de aguarela tiran­do partido das texturas propiciadas por esse suporte e ate dos efeitos de luminosidade que ele permite reforc;:ar ou anular. Manuel Casal Aguiar optou por conservar a auto­nomia relativa de fotografia e pintura sem expor­tar registos especfficos de uma para a outra area. Essa reserva de domfnio permite, do ponto de vista do observador, estabelecer um dialogo livre entre os dois meios para desvendar, pela fotogra­fia, aspectos aparentemente enigmaticos da pin­tura.

3. Passado e Presente

Timar a vista Uma enseada. Nuvens tranquilas, montanha a/ta.

Ruy Cinatti•

A distancia e a mem6ria retiram a vivencia da rea­lidade o contraste e a nitidez do quotidiano ime­diato. Fora do seu envolvimento, o mundo vista e lembrado recorta-se em perfis completamente novas, de objectos depurados e acontecimentos seleccionados. Mas o processo de rememorac;:ao opera em duas direcc;:6es - uma que limpa e apaga, outra que sobrep6e camadas de saber e emoc;:ao. Sistema laboratorial que sedimenta e recomp6e ideias, acontecimentos e experiencias, o seu resultado torna-se o lugar da mem6ria exposta, o lugar onde os fragmentos ganham nova sentido e se unificam. Houve tempos em que os artistas trabalharam sabre o motivo, esboc;:aram-no em notac;:6es rapi­das para, no atelier, desenvolver, ampliar e orga­nizar os apontamentos registados. Era uma for­mula de trabalho que buscava a maxima semelhanc;:a e a reconstituic;:ao certeira e habil. Romantismos, realismos, naturalismos alteraram­se e os artistas rejeitaram a vizinhanc;:a do real optando pela intenc;:ao sugestiva e nao represen­tativa. 0 trabalho de Casal Aguiar remete-nos

out exporting specific registers from one to the other. This preservation of the disciplinary field enables the viewer to establish a free dialogue between the two means to unveil through photog­raphy apparently enigmatic aspects of painting.

3. Past and Present

East Timar on sight A cove. Tranquil clouds, high mountain.

Ruy Cinatti•

Distance and memory deprive the experience of reality of the contrast and sharpness of immediate daily life. Away from its involvement, the seen and remembered world gains the entirely new con­tours of stark objects and selected events. But the recalling process functions in two ways - one that cleans and erases, another that overlaps layers of knowledge and emotion. A Jaboratorial system which solidifies and re-orders ideas, events and experiences, its result becomes the space of the exposed memory, the space where fragments acquire a new sense and become whole. There was a time when artists worked on the motive, sketched it in rapid notations so as to develop, enlarge and organise the recorded notes in the studio. This was a working formula which sought maximum similitude and faithful and skilful reconstruction. Romanticisms, realisms, natu­ralisms changed and artists rejected the proximity to reality, opting for the suggestive, rather than the representative intention. Casal Aguiar's work refers us back to this strategy of dialogue, though a greater distance than the geographic separated him from the initial motives - the temporal dis­tance. The project comes to fruition many years after the first signs have settled in the author's life. Time did its job: it carved out of the material of places and the wake of days and years. What happened then to Manuel Casal Aguiar's Timar? In many of the paintings he made, a seem­ingly sculptural element appears, a three-dimen­sional object which now presents an undivided

para essa estrategia de dialogo com os sitios reais mas uma distancia maier do que a geografi­ca separava-o dos motives iniciais - a distancia temporal. 0 projecto concretiza-se muitos anos depois de os primeiros sinais se terem instalado na vida do autor. 0 tempo fez o seu trabalho: esculpiu sobre a materia dos lugares e sobre o lastro dos dias e dos anos. 0 que aconteceu entao ao Timer de Manuel Casal Aguiar? Em muitas das pinturas realizadas surge um elemento de aparencia escult6rica, um objec­to tridimensional que, ora apresenta uma configu­ra9ao integra, ora se subdivide em dois elemen­tos; ora surge de perfil, ora de frente; ora esta sobre uma mesa,ora sobre o chao, no mar ou no ceu. Mas, acima de tudo, esta no espa90 da pin­tura porque e um elementos que 0 pinter transfe­re de obra para obra, manipulando-o a vontade, integrando-o onde a composi9ao determina. Este leit-motiv que percorre toda a galeria de trabalhos e uma estiliza9ao da ilha de Timor, uma apropria-9ao do territ6rio conhecido, tornado portatil, pron­to a servir a um pintor. Nao pude deixar de o colar a defini9ao essencial de Ruy Cinatti na sua apro­xima9ao a ilha, atras citada. Estrategia interes­santissima de abordagem de uma regiao, exem­plificativa do modo como a pintura e o pintor se relacionam com o mundo e com o tempo. Existem outros elementos que neste processo pict6rico se petrificaram e tornaram escult6ricos: antes de mais, observemos as figuras femininas de ar estatico e contemplativo numa simplifica9ao de meios que, de novo, convoca Gauguin. Em seguida, atente-se no elemento visual que confir­ma estarmos no reino da mem6ria: trata-se daquele bloco transparente que envolve certas figuras, entre a transparencia rigida do gelo, a tre­pida9ao de um veu e a velatura da pintura, remis­sao para essa paragem no tempo e no lugar, tar­diamente retomados. Por ultimo, repare-se na mesa que surge repetidamente: ilha, figuras, mar, frutos, arvores, nuvens tornaram-se adere9os na mesa de trabalho do artista. Como as tintas, os pinceis, o pastel e o lapis.

configuration, now subdivides mto two elements; which now shows itself in profile, now in front; which is now on a table, now on the floor, in the sea or in the sky. But, above all, it lies in the space of painting because it is an element the painter transfers from work to work, manipulating it at will and integrating it where the composition demands. This leit-motiv, which pervades his whole gallery of works, is a stylisation of the island of Timar, an appropriation of the known territory, made portable and ready to serve to a painter. I could not help but associate it with Ruy Cinatti's essential definition, in his aforementioned approach to the island. It is a very interestmg approach to a region, which illustrates the way in which the painting and the painter relate them­selves with the world and with time. Other elements have petrified and become sculp­tural in this pictorial process: observe, for a start, the female figures, in a static and contemplative demeanour. whose simple technique evokes Gau­guin once more. Now look at the visual element which confirms that we are in the realm of memo­ry: I refer to the transparent block that encloses certain figures, somewhere between the rigid transparency of ice, the vibration of a veil and the glaze of painting, a reference to this suspension in time and space, belatedly resumed. Finally, note the table that appears repeatedly: island, figures, sea, fruit, trees, clouds became props on the artist's working table. Just like paints, brushes, pastel and pencil.

4. Past and present again

Slanted angles reveal the bottom of the sea in the crystalline waters of the blue gulf. (. . .) A blurred apparition in the field that I can see, I nse up again to the surface of the soul and I live in spite of myself.

Ruy Cinatti5

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4. Passado e presente ainda

Angulos obliquos revelam o fundo do mar no golfo azul, de agua cristalina ( . .) Aparir;;ao desfocada no campo que posso ver, volto ac1ma a superffc1e da alma e vivo. sem querer.

Ruy Cinatti5

Pisamos terra da mem6ria. Outros aspectos exemplificatlvos da mesma situac;ao podem apon­tar-se a come9ar pelos enquadramentos - esta­mos numa 1lha, numa porc;ao de terra rodeada de mar por todos os lados. Podemos balan9ar nesta ilha como se de um barco se tratasse? As diago­nais que delimitam conscientemente a visao do pintor e constroem o limite da nossa, imp6em essa sensac;ao de equilfbrio instavel na agua e na terra. Os jogos com a perspectiva servem esta ideia de balanc;o e, se podem ser referencias de uma inovac;ao •mportante que os impressionistas e os p6s-impressionistas geraram, nao se reporta menos a radical posic;ao dos cubistas, obreiros da multlplicac;ao de angulos de visao. Mas o espac;o da pintura de Manuel Casal Aguiar e construfdo ainda por uma sobreposi9ao expres­siva de dados que acrescentam a mem6ria, as vivencias do presente. Quando procuramos nas fotografias as tabuas corridas de uma plataforma habitada, conseguimos identifica-las e verificar que organizaram a superffcie pintada mas. ao mesmo tempo, apercebemos a evoca9ao do espac;o do atelier do artista. Passado e presente m1sturam-se e, com ele, os espa9os relatives a cada memento. Ao ler os titulos estamos perante um retorno ao passado. De facto, os titulos destas pec;as reali­zadas muitos anos ap6s a estadia em Timor, reto­mam titulos de canc;oes da mus1ca popular que naquele tempo se ouvia e que a radio passava. Para recuperar, nao s6 a forma mas tambem o espirito da circunstancia vivida, Manuel Casal

We tread m the land of memory We can point out other illustrative aspects of the same situation, starting with the frames - we are on an island. on a piece of land surrounded by water on every side. Can we rock in this island as though it were a boat? The diagonals that consciously de/imitate the painter's vision and build the limit of our own impose this feeling of precarious balance on water and inland. The plays on perspective serve this idea of balance and, though they may be refer­ences to an important innovation originated by the impressionists and the post-impressionists, they nevertheless pertain to the radical standing of the cubists, the creators of the multiplication of angles of vision. But the space of Manuel Casal Aguiar's painting is also constructed through an expressive overlap­ping of data which add the experiences of the present to the memory. When we look for the run­ning boards of an inhabited platform in the photo­graphs, we manage to identify them and see that they have organised the painted surface but, at the same time, we perceive the evocation of the studio space of the artist. Past and present blend and with them, the spaces relating to each moment. When we read the titles we are before a return to the past. In fact, the titles of these works, made many years after his stay in East Timor, retrieve titles of popular songs which were heard and played on the radio at the time. To recover not only the form but also the spirit of the lived cir­cumstance, Casal Aguiar brought these songs into the painting act in a rational and multi-senso­rial system. He talks about an autobiographic pro1ect, punctu­ated by self-portraits as an artist, at work or in con­templation. This personal and individualistic dimension of Casal Aguiar's proposal includes an artistic and investigative authenticity, a sensitive and cognitive component which contrasts with the wider context in which multicultural approaches, exhibitions of multiple cultures. festivals of ethnic dialogue, folk­loric and primitivistic approaches rooted in criteria that are difficult to gauge, have been made. In the

Aguiar recuperou essas musicas no acto de pin­tar, num sistema racional e multi-sersorial 0 pinter fala de um projecto autobiografico pon­tuado por auto-retratos na condi9ao de artista, em trabalho ou em contempla9ao. Esta dimensao pessoal e individualista da pro­posta de Manuel Casal Aguiar, inclui uma autenti­cidade artistica e nvestigativa, uma componente sensivel e cognitiva que contrasta com o contex­to mais vasto em que foram feitas abordagens multiculturais, exposi96es de mult1plas culturas, festivais de dialogo etnico aproxima96es folcl6ri­cas e primit1vistas radicadas em criterios dificeis de aferir Nos anos 80 e 90 ass1stiu-se, nos maio­res museus do Ocidente, a grandes exposi96es de arte hispanica, do povo maori, do Mexico de arte ind1ana, de cultura japonesa, dos nativos americanos, etc., etc. 0 tratamento destas cultu­ras e feito, ora em fun9ao da qualidade artistica intrinseca dos seus objectos, ora em fun9ao da ident1dade etnica dos seus autores. Em qualquer dos casos sao conceitos e classifica96es do mundo ocidental que estao em jogo, tornando vul­neraveis as realidades expostas. A aproxima9ao erudita a diferentes culturas que se verificou em larga escala nos Estados Unidos e Canada, em Fran9a ou na Holanda, enquadra o trabalho indi­vidual de artistas acostados a sitios longinquos e culturas do mundo nao ocidental6

•

Nao podemos deixar de fer no proJecto que o artista deliberadamente expos as ma1s diversas contamina96es, um sinal do nosso tempo. Como se influencias de ordem varia e personagens de diferentes epocas se abeirassem do pinter para lhe segredar respostas, para o aliciar com pro­postas, para lhe abrir caminhos que coincidissem com preocupa96es acumuladas ao longo dos a nos.

5. Para sempre Num catalogo de Edouard Boubat ve-se uma fotografia de 1950 intitulada "A Pintura" que repre­senta a figura de um pintor na Pont des Arts, em Paris, sentado num banquinho de Iona no acto de pintar o Sena as suas pontes ou as suas mar­gens, sobre a pequena tela assente num cavalete

1980s and 1990s we have seen m the ma1or Western museums large exhibitions of Hispanic art, art of the Maori people, Mexican and Indian art, the Japanese culture American native art, etc., etc. These cultures are treated, sometimes for the intrinsic artistic quality of the exhibits, sometimes for the ethnic identity of their authors. In either case, it 1s Western concepts and classifi­cations that are at work, making the exhibited real­ities vulnerable The erudite approach to different cultures, which occurred on a massive scale in the United States and Canada, in France or The Netherlands, informs the individual work of artists who draw inspiration from remote places and non­Western cultures . We cannot but read a sign of our time into the proj­ect that the artist deliberately exposed to the most diverse contaminations, as though diverse influ­ences and characters from different eras had whispered into the painter's ears answers to entice him with proposals, to open up to him ways that concurred with concerns accumulated throughout the years.

5. Forever A catalogue by Edouard Boubat shows a photo­graph called "Painting" which represents the fig­ure of a painter in the Pont des Arts, in Paris. sit­ting on a small canvas stool as he paints the Seine, its bndges or its banks. on the small can­vas propped up against a portable easel. I have always felt attracted to this rather banal photo­graph in which the world, the painter and the pho­tographer emerge in successive registers. Sunday bystanders watch the scene, no doubt thinking about the coincidence between what they observe from that bridge and what the artist is painting, and we can guess the movement of the eye between the honzon and that almost filled sup­port All straightforward and simple. This other painter we are concerned with is sitting on a platform. having a tree for company. Con­templative. He has not started painting yet. He observes and meditates. Only years later will he remember this moment and paint his self-portrait on a background of plain sand and blue and pink

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portatil. Sempre me atraiu esta fotografia tao banal onde surgem o mundo, o pintor e o fot6gra­fo, em registos sucessivos. Circunstantes de domingo apreciam a cena e pensam certamente na coincidencia entre o que observam daquela ponte e o que o artista pinta, podendo adivinhar­se o movimento do olhar entre o horizonte e aque­le suporte quase preenchido. Tudo directo e sim­ples. Este outro pintor que nos interessa esta sentado numa plataforma com uma arvore por companhia. Contemplativo. Nao pinta ainda. Observa e medi­ta. S6 anos mais tarde lembrara este momenta e fara o seu auto-retrato num fundo de areia lisa e horizonte azul e rosa [serie Oceania XXXV]. Este pintor senta-se em frente a uma mesa com a mesma arvore. O azul esta mais intenso e o mar tern a cor profunda de paragens ex6ticas. Obser­va e pinta. [serie Oceania XXlll). Atraves de elementos singulares mas altamente exemplificativos de uma atmosfera ou do perfume que dela permaneceu, reconstruimos uma via­gem activa, uma viagem que nao durou apenas o tempo de ir e regressar, mas que se prolongou pela existencia posterior ao retorno. Manuel Casal Aguiar s6 agora terminou essa viagem. Mas te-la-a, de facto, terminado?

Laura Castro

1 Respectivamente publicados pela Editorial Preseni;;a, em 1996 e pela Editora Pax, em 1974.

2 Este posf<icio pertence a obra, tambem p6stuma, Archeologia as usum animae, Lisboa, Editorial Preseni;;a, 2000.

3 Trata-se de Renato Roque in 0 que resta da arte?, Matosi-nhos, 1997

4 In Paisagens Timorenses com Vu/tos, p. 26 5 In Archeologia as usum animae, p. 13 6 Um interessante recolha destas exposii;;oes e feita no livro

Exhibiting Cultures coordenado por Ivan Karp e Steven Lavine, Washington, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991

7 Boubat par Boubat, Lyon , Fondation Nationale de la Photo­graphie, 1979

horizon [series Oceania XXXV]. This painter sits at a table with the same tree. The blue is richer and the sea has the deep colour of exotic places. He observes and he paints. [series Oceania XX/II]. Through singular, yet highly illustrative elements of an atmosphere or the perfume that lingered after it, we reconstruct an active journey, a journey that did not last as long as it took to go and return, but continued throughout the painter's existence after he returned. Manuel Casal Aguiar only fin­ished his travels now. But will he have actually finished?

Laura Castro

1 Respecllvely published by Editorial Preseni;;a, in 1996 and by Editora Pax, in 1974.

2 This afterword is included in the work, also posthumous. Archeologia as usum animae, Lisbon, Editorial Presen9a. 2000.

3 We refer to Renato Roque in 0 que resta da arte? (What is /efl of art?), Matosinhos, 1997

4 In Paisagens Timorenses com Vultos. p. 26 5 In Archeologia as usum animae, p. 13 6 An interesting compilation of these exhibitions is made m the

book Exhibiting Cultures coordinated by Ivan Karp and Steven Lavine, Washington, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991

7 Boubat par Boubat, Lyon, Fondation Nationale de la Pho­tographie, 1979