Between the forest and the garden : Alberto Carneiro and the cultive of the earth

Abstract

Alberto Carneiro, Fernando Lanhas and Clara Menéres, opened in Portugal, in the 20th century, a field of work between art and territory, defining new artistic genres from nature. In this article, Carneiro's work reveals approaches to artistic actions that, from a new attitude towards nature, inform about intrinsic components of the practice of art and sculpture, across the territory. In a reading of the country, the works in question paved the way for generations of younger artists, in line with contemporary international trends. Researching the landscape, Carneiro associates the activity of sculptor with gardening and horticulture practices, looking for equivalences of aesthetic feeling in the void as a form of knowledge and eternity, between art and the spontaneous rhythm of nature, articulating the practice of sculpture with problems of space and construction and with manual know-how. In about forty years, Portugal has changed radically, Carneiro's work documents it evoking the rural country (memory) and the current country (absence).