A Brazilian Artist's Perspective on Work

Work in Art

O Lavrador de Café (1934) - Candido Portinari

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By Tom McMahan

Through the centuries, visual artists have portrayed work and workers with dignity, despair, courage, futility, and nobility. Each painting or sculpture reflects the artist’s view of life, economics, work, and human meaning.

O Lavrador de Café (The Coffee Farmer) by Candido Portinari (1903-1962) can be found in one of Brazil’s largest and most reputable art museums, the Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP) in the state of São Paulo.

This oil-on-canvas painting shows a Black man holding a hoe in front of a coffee farm in Brazil. Growing up on a coffee farm himself, Portinari’s painting is one of his many that depict the coffee industry during a marking time in Brazil’s history.

The painting is full of important ideas and symbols that help us understand that era in Brazil. It also portrays Portinari’s exploration of the interaction of work, human dignity, and nature.

The man’s oversized hands and feet emphasize how the worker’s body is responsible for his success. More importantly, the man’s face shows sadness and concern, teaching us about a country that was built on a foundation of poor men and women who worked the lands of other men.

However, Portinari portrays the Black man’s dignity, which transcends his hardship. The worker’s sheer size occupies almost a third of the canvas while cross-hatched contour lines, as seen in Rembrandt’s The Three Crosses, add weight to his figure. He is literally larger than life, more majestic than the fields where he works.

Occupying another third of the painting, the sky is filled with puffy clouds in the background. Portinari uses the vast light-blue and white background as contrasting colors that add nobility to the man’s facial expression. He seems to be victorious over his circumstances.

Although the man transcends the land, he is also inseparable from it. Starting at the scorched ground beneath the man’s feet, the small horizontal lines guide the viewer to the red dirt on the left side of the canvas and up into the coffee field, eventually to one of two diagonal recessions where the physical world seems to vanish. We can perhaps say that Portinari is portraying a noble working man standing strong between the material and spiritual realms.

This is an uncomfortable, unbalanced position. The right side of the painting seems heavier, higher, and out of equilibrium. The worker must bend his knee to stay level. In fact, balance is so important here that the man uses a tool intended for work for rest and support.

Human impact on nature is also evident. A train and its tracks cut through the heart of the composition. Rows of coffee plants, symbolizing production, eliminate the natural landscape. To the right, a tree stump symbolizes Brazil’s widespread deforestation.

Additionally, Portinari fills the scene with Brazil’s local light, which is yellower, warmer, and differs from the light found in many other parts of the world. The sky’s light tones add further clarity and dignity to the worker’s strong face. 

O Lavrador de Café speaks to me about a transitional time in my home country’s history; it also broadens my understanding of the hardship shared by people and the environment in the name of progress. This painting makes me wonder what it must have been like to have lived that man’s life, and it makes me appreciate the little things that we often take for granted.

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