Revista de História da Arte

Disowning Contemporary Art

Annalisa Laganà — 2025-09-29

Nestore Leoni (1862-1947) was a talented manuscript illuminator, once famous both inside and outside Italy although little known to contemporary scholars. Italian academics and critics from different backgrounds commented on his work while he was alive: from their writings comes everything we know about him. Nevertheless, such commentators hardly addressed the ontological characteristics of his artifacts, which were inspired by an ancient artistic practice but at the same time fully engaged in the modern visual culture. The dual identity of his works severely challenged the early modern art history interpretation method. Only after the 1930s did scholars developed an appropriate hermeneutical approach, owing to expertise gradually achieved by then in the realm of contemporary art critics. I problematise the critical reception of this artist’s work through a preliminary critical overview of Italian artistic sources of the early twentieth century, considering them from a revisionist perspective, and offering their first translation.

Paul Cézanne e os Mistérios Cromáticos do Azul na Antiguidade Mediterrânea

Felipe Barcelos Ney — 2025-09-29

In this article, we explore the chromatic perception of blue in Ancient Greece and its potential resonance with the chromatic investigations of the Provençal painter Paul Cézanne. This study offers a counterpoint to the traditional modern interpretation of the painter’s relationship with the concept of the tectonic in Classical art. We argue that Cézanne’s connection with the early Greeks is revealed in the way the chromatic lexicon of the time engaged with blue—a color then unnamed yet semantically rich—through its predicative qualities in the description of objects. The concept of the tectonic, employed by authors such as Heinrich Wölfflin and Carl Einstein as a hallmark of Classical art, is here contrasted with the concept of the chthonic. The latter, we propose, chromatically emphasizes predicative qualities more attuned to density, contrast, and texture, rather than the constructive aspect of form, in Cézanne’s painting.

Imaginar Histórias da Arte Queer em Portugal: o Caso de Mário Cesariny

João Góis — 2025-09-29

The desexualization in the Portuguese History of Art has overlooked the impact of sexual identities on artistic production and the trajectories of artists with dissident sexualities. This silence becomes particularly concerning in cases of openly homosexual artists such as Mário Cesariny, where the homoerotic content of his Marinheiros (Sailors) series has been rendered invisible. Analyzing these works within the scope of the artist’s private life and the context of cultural expressions that shaped the homoerotic imaginary of the sailor in the 19th and 20th centuries allows them to be associated with values of eroticism, virility, freedom, and class. Cesariny’s sailors become pictorial symbols of resistance in homophobic environ[1]ments, embodying gay desire coded within a heteronormative masculinity. By suggesting how the absence of queer perspectives perpetuates the marginalization of these artworks, we propose a methodological revision in Portuguese History of Art that integrates a more plural approach, enriching the disciplinary field

História da Arte, Estudos Visuais, História do Design

Maria José Goulão — 2025-09-29

The relationship between Design History, a recent disciplinary area, and research methods and processes in Art History — a branch of knowledge that is solidly established and has a long tradition, but is subject to successive criticisms and revisions — are analyzed and critically questioned in this article. We will also discuss the concept of design itself and its evolution and scope, the motivations of the History of Design, and its importance for valuing and legitimizing the designers’ own activity. This paper also delves with the relationship between Art History, Visual Studies and Material Culture Studies, and the way they can contribute to the History of Design and to increasing the appreciation and visibility of design as a cultural form

Reabrir o Dossier do(s) Mestre(s) de S. Quintino

Raúl C. Sampaio Lopes — 2025-09-29

The knowledge we have today about the painter Diogo de Contreiras (doc. 1521‑† c. 1563) allows us to define more strictly the corpus of paintings most likely attributable to him, among which are some recent discoveries presented in this article. Outside this corpus remains a considerable number of panels previously associated with the hypothetical Master of S. Quintino, and many of these (though not all) can be connected with paintings in Santa Cruz da Graciosa (Azores) or in Santa Cruz da Madeira, which have recently gained greater visibility. All these paintings fit within the same stylistic dynamic that points toward the work of Gaspar Dias (doc. 1553–1591), perhaps through the painting of the obscure Brás Gonçalves (doc. 1541–1565). It is still difficult to draw a precise dividing line, but two overlooked drawings suggest attributing some of the paintings in Graciosa, in S. Quintino, and in Madeira to the artist of Saint Roch Visited by an Angel.

A Possible Identification of the Sitter in a Portrait by Bronzino

Samuel Temkin — 2025-09-29

This study proposes a possible identification of the sitter in Bronzino’s portrait of a young man wearing a plumed hat. Although some scholars believe that the sitter was a Florentine aristocrat, we believe that he was a Spaniard who was close to the Dukes of Florence. Among the possible candidates was Enrique Nunes, a wealthy man born in Lisbon into a Jewish family of Spanish origin. That he could have been the sitter is suggested by a contemporary document that places him in the duchess’s quarters in the Palazzo Vecchio at the time the portrait was made. Here we consider the possibility that Enrique was that sitter by examining several contemporary documents that refer to him, and by comparing his age, appearance

and dress with those of the sitter. On that basis we conclude that the probability that Enrique was the sitter is not small.

Interview with Josep Serra i Villalba

João Correia de Sá — 2025-09-29

Contributors

Annalisa Laganà — 2025-09-29