O Homem e a máquina 1966

Emiliano Di Cavalcanti made this painting called O Homem e a máquina with oil paint, and boy, is it something else. I imagine him, brush in hand, trying to figure out how to get all these figures to fit together. What are they doing? Are they thinking? I get the sense that he's not telling a story. There is a softness to the edges in the painting, a gentleness in the way it is put together. And then, right there, he paints these flat stars and hard lines cutting across them, and it just brings the whole image together, like a wild machine. Do you see how the women’s faces look forward but the forms melt into the background? Maybe he was in dialogue with Picasso and those cubist babes at the time. All painters, including me, are in an ongoing conversation and exchange of ideas across time, inspiring one another’s creativity. This painting asks, what can we learn from this man and his machine? What is it saying to us today?