The Met Office recognises ten types of cloud. These, in turn, are divided into three groups based on their height above the ground. Artist Amadeo Luciano Lorenzato was mainly concerned with meteorological low-fliers, in particular cumulus and stratocumulus. Meaning: the ones that look like fluffy white sheep and the ones that look like stretched-out sausage dogs.
There’s maybe a few autocumulus in there as well (I’m not a weatherman), but the point is these are happy clouds, the kind that bob and float but present no threat. Leave-your-umbrella-at-home clouds.
The Brazilian painter made a career out of capturing the everyday scenes of his hometown, Belo Horizonte, and this is the first solo exhibition of his art held outside of Brazil. Lorenzato, who travelled in Europe, took inspiration from artists such as Picasso and Matisse, and the Italian Renaissance (Leonardo and friends). To those tutored in Western art, there’s an unmistakable ‘traditionalism’ to the collection on display. There’s even an image of a bowl, complete with a pair of oranges and some perfunctory flowers, which looks sort of like what you’d bash out if asked to explain to a primary school group what the words ‘still life’ mean.
This isn’t, then, an exhibition designed to set the world on fire. But don’t dismiss it out of hand. Lorenzato is at his best when not taking things so literally. One of his more beguiling landscapes features the red dot of a setting sun reflected in a sea of salmon-pink blancmange.
His real talent, however, is for painting the sunlight and colours of a hot climate. In ‘Praia da Costa’, little figures float in the shallows of a baby blue ocean, while others bask on light muscovado sand. Weighed down by January, who doesn’t want to be reminded what it feels like to soak up the heat of a day at the beach, cool water lapping and not a cloud in the sky?