O Desterrado, by Soares dos Reis, a Watercolor of Saudade
2023-04-22
This is my take on “O Desterrado”, by Soares dos Reis. I think he’s the biggest name in classical Portuguese sculpture.
About O Desterrado
The piece was carved in Carrara marble. He started it in Rome, in 1872, as his final exam piece for his sculpture course. It was later finished in Porto. Soares dos Reis, born in Vila Nova de Gaia, died young, in 1889, without the recognition his work would later earn.
The sculpture shows a man sitting on a rock beaten by waves, his head lowered, his hands resting on his legs. The work is Soares dos Reis’ interpretation of the verses from the poem “Tristezas do Desterro”, by Alexandre Herculano.
Many consider those verses the ultimate expression of saudade, a feeling so deeply tied to Portuguese culture. The sculpture even won the gold medal at the Madrid International Exhibition, in 1881. Today, it’s part of the collection at Museu Nacional Soares dos Reis, here in Porto. More than a hundred and fifty years later, O Desterrado is still read as a symbol of exile, and of distance from a place we love, whether physical or emotional.
Reading all that and then seeing the sculpture, it was funny, because that day I was particularly homesick for intangible things I’d left behind in Brazil. And the theme being exactly that, melancholy, the pain of distance, the longing for home, hit even harder.
That’s how this page of O Desterrado was born in my sketchbook. I remember putting on my headphones, Madredeus playing “Haja o que Houver“. And feeling even more moved by all of it.