{"id":146129,"date":"2014-04-03T18:10:09","date_gmt":"2014-04-03T21:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/?p=146129"},"modified":"2014-04-03T18:12:43","modified_gmt":"2014-04-03T21:12:43","slug":"faithful-portraits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/faithful-portraits\/","title":{"rendered":"Faithful portraits"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Drawings

BUTANTAN INSTITUTE<\/span>Drawings of a whole and a dissected jararacu\u00e7u pit viper (Bothrops jararacussu<\/em>): the artist\u2019s intent was to show the relation between the venom gland and the prey (signed and dated by the artist)BUTANTAN INSTITUTE<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Before photography became fully developed in the late 19th<\/sup> century, the only way that scientists, and naturalists in particular, could record flora and fauna was through painting or drawing. Many of these individuals, almost all European, became masters of the art, prompting natural history museums and research institutes to recruit draftsmen to their staffs. It was the same in Brazil. The Oswaldo Cruz Institute and National Museum, in Rio de Janeiro; the Em\u00edlio Goeldi Museum of Par\u00e1, Bel\u00e9m; and the Biological Institute and Butantan Institute, both in S\u00e3o Paulo, all availed themselves of the work of science illustrators. Augusto Esteves (1891-1966) was one of the artists who placed his talent at the service of science. In 1912, he was the first illustrator hired by Vital Brazil to portray reptiles at the Butantan Institute. Years later, Esteves also became the wax modeler at the University of S\u00e3o Paulo School of Medicine (FMUSP).<\/p>\n

At the Butantan Institute, Augusto Esteves rendered snakes using India ink and oil or watercolor. There was something unique about his drawings for that time: \u201cHis plates were in color and had shadowing, something nobody else used when they drew animals,\u201d says Osvaldo Augusto Sant\u2019Anna, researcher at the Butantan Institute\u2019s Immunochemistry Laboratory and coordinator of the National Institute of Science and Technology in Toxicology. \u201cThe world\u2019s leading centers that specialized in snake antivenoms were the Pasteur Institute in France and the institute headed by Vital Brazil here in S\u00e3o Paulo. I saw the pen and ink drawings by French artists and I didn\u2019t think they were at all like what Esteves was doing here,\u201d Sant\u2019Anna observes.<\/p>\n

\"Above,

BUTANTAN INSTITUTE<\/span>Above, close-ups of a rattlesnake (Crotalus terrificus terrificus<\/em>)BUTANTAN INSTITUTE<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Sant\u2019Anna is the grandson of the illustrator and the oldest great-grandson of Vital Brazil; he is also one of the latter\u2019s few descendents to have become a researcher. He says that Esteves was born in the Paran\u00e1 city of S\u00e3o Jos\u00e9 da Boa Vista but that by the age of one, he was living in Avar\u00e9, in the state of S\u00e3o Paulo. When Esteves was 13, he and his brother Lindolpho moved to the capital city, where he worked in commerce and took painting classes at night. At the age of 17, he won the silver medal at the fair held in 1908 in Rio de Janeiro in celebration of the centennial of the opening of Brazil\u2019s ports. He then began taking classes with Pedro Strina, a painter known for his landscapes and portraits. Since Esteves could not afford to pay, he cleaned the artist\u2019s studio instead.<\/p>\n

When Esteves met the family of Vital Brazil, he was captivated by the scientist\u2019s second daughter, Alvarina. The two were married in 1919 and had six daughters. That same year, the whole Vital Brazil family moved to Niter\u00f3i, Rio de Janeiro, where the scientist embarked upon a private venture: for the purpose of researching and producing veterinary, biological, and pharmaceutical products, he founded the institute that today bears his name. Esteves was appointed administrative director by his father-in-law.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Coral

BUTANTAN INSTITUTE<\/span>Coral snake (Micrurus lemniscatus<\/em>): the shadows in the drawing help show the snake\u2019s movementBUTANTAN INSTITUTE<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

In 1934, the artist returned to S\u00e3o Paulo, where he worked at the Pinheiros Institute, Mercy Hospital, and the FMUSP Department of Dermatology. His mission was to use wax molds to reproduce dermatological lesions, which professors then used as classroom aids. \u201cThey were so similar to the originals that his molds were widely used in courses on forensic medicine and in forensic reports,\u201d says Sant\u2019Anna. Many of the hundreds of molds that Esteves fashioned can be seen at the FMUSP Historical Museum. Esteves also held individual shows, where he exhibited paintings of other subjects, like landscapes and portraits. In addition, he nurtured his memories of rural life by composing poems in a rustic country style that reflected regional phonetics.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2012, the Butantan Institute published the book <\/span>Serpentes <\/i>(Snakes), by Henrique Mois\u00e9s Canter, in tribute to the nine artists who worked at the institute producing accurate depictions of these reptiles. The volume opens with Augusto Esteves \u2013 not only because he was the first of these men but also because of the quality of his art. Today, research institutions have practically abolished the post of science illustrator; the only way to find one is by doing an Internet search. \u201cIt\u2019s a shame,\u201d says Nelson Papavero, a retired researcher formerly with the Zoology Museum at USP. \u201cDrawings are irreplaceable when it comes to portraying certain plants and animals, because they are the only way to capture details more sharply than in a photograph.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Augusto Esteves was the first science illustrator at the Butantan Institute","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[152],"tags":[209,241],"coauthors":[104],"class_list":["post-146129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-retrospect","tag-biology","tag-history"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146129\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146129"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=146129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}