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Murals

In 1937, Roberto Burle Marx assists the artist Candido Portinari in the execution of the frescos and tile murals for the Ministry of Education and Health. This initiates Burle Marx into working in the Portuguese azulejo tradition, a technique that involves painting white ceramic tiles, mainly in shades of blue. Burle Marx will go on to use such tile murals to create a vertical counterpoint in the gardens he designs. They are often combined with a water basin, mirroring the mural and the abundant plants in front of it.

Stylistically, in his early azulejo murals he draws on the figurative representations by English artist Henry Moore, whose work he encountered during a trip to London. Examples of this style can be seen in Burle Marx’s murals for the gardens of Walther Moreira Salles and of Arnaldo Aizim. The human forms become increasingly abstract. Around 1950, he begins making murals featuring geometric compositions, of a kind that have not yet appeared in his paintings. With this, he completes the shift towards concrete art, even though in his work geometric rigour continues to be enlivened by the use of organic forms.

This period also sees the creation of his first mosaic murals. The opening of multiple factories producing glass mosaics in São Paulo goes some way to explain Burle Marx’s growing use of this material. The new technique offers the possibility of a freer experimentation with colour, and the corresponding extension of an expressive formal repertoire.

Soon, Burle Marx is experimenting with the use of yet another new material; he begins developing geometrical abstractions in concrete. The brutalist style of his reliefs, largely created for outside spaces, also marks a turning away from the impression of intimacy created by his tile and mosaic works.