MWW Artwork of the Day (5/29/21) Belmiro de Almeida (Brazilian, 1858–1935) Arrufos (The Spat)(1887) Oil on canvas, 89.1 x 116.1 cm. Museu Nacional de Belas Artes, Rio de Janeiro
Painted two years after the artist's return to Brazil, this was one of the first Brazilian works to break with the tradition of historical paintings and sacred images. Harmonic, with firm strokes and defined design, the painting depicts a misunderstanding between a bourgeois couple. The woman is leaning on a couch and crying, while the man, for his part, complacently sits and contemplates his pipe, showing himself totally uninterested her troubles. In the foreground to the woman's left, one can see a shattered rose, which she has possibly thrown there in a moment of anger. The artist had previously portrayed the desolation of a woman in this fashion in his "Amuada", and, a decade later, in his "The Bad News". In both this painting and "The Bad News" the women physically display their pain, and both lie on a sort of sofa and hide the tears with their hands, making it impossible to see their faces.
