Portrait of the Portuguese who illustrated Madonna

Here’s the English translation of the profile of Rui Paes, the illustrator of Madonna‘s fifth children’s book, that was published yesterday by Portuguese newspaper “Diaro de Noticias“, courtesy of MadonnaTribe Team member Pam Anderson.

Madonna chose a Portuguese painter to illustrate her latest children’s book. “Lotsa de Casha” tells the story of an old, unhappy man who discovers the joy of sharing. A simple plot, contrasting with the baroque illustration signed by Rui Paes, name with which the pop star shares the protagonism of this story, translated into more than 40 languages, published in 110 countries and set to be launched worldwide in Portugal on June 1st (International Day of the Child).

Rui Paes was in Genoa, when he got contacted by Callaway Editions, Madonna’s children’s books publisher. The New York Times Magazine had published, not long ago, an article about a room painted by the Portuguese in a Norwegian castle. It was in February 2003. That palatial ambience seduced the author and, four months later, Rui Paes interrupted the work he was doing in Genoa to install himself in his London atelier, trying to give a shape to the narrative and to the characters created by Madonna.

With a wide curriculum in the area of trompe l’oeil, part of Paes’ life and work takes place in palaces. Walls, murals and canvas of rich houses in Egypt, Germany, England, Lebanon, Norway and, now, Italy, are part of a route where the figurative is getting stronger and stronger. It is while climbing the stairwell of the Palazzo Reale in Genoa that this artist, practically unknown in Portugal, confesses his fascination for the Baroque aesthetics – and the early forms of painting -, reflected through shapes that seem out of date or, at least, challenge current tendencies.

He lives and works in this environment, in a nearby palace built in the beginning of the XVII century that hosts of one of the biggest and most important private painting collections in Europe.

“It is very inspiring to be here. The Baroque is one of the most fun and captivating languages to re-use. In mural painting, it is the most satisfying technique. But it has to be very well understood, as it looks very frivolous. But it is not. It is very well rooted and offers a great freedom,” he defends, staring at a fresco which decorates the Palazzo Reale’s Mirror Room.

His caution prevents him from revealing the name of the house and its owners, but it is among canvas from Rubens, Van Dyck and Bruegel that Rui Paes paints, in a room overlooking Via Balbi, one of Genoa’s main arteries, built in the beginning of the XVII century, when huge palaces were beginning to be built there; today, however, it is not as splendorous as in those days.

Palatian Life

It is in that street, right next to the Piazza dell’Annunziata, that he is living since 2000, in a stay which he interrupts whenever he is solicited for other jobs and which is expected top end in three or four months. “Van Dyck painted the marquises and I, now, am doing paintings with the help,” he says, while he is questioned about the work that he is doing. And one can realise, by the reserve in his smile, that he wants to close this subject. The same one he was asked while said about the chance of illustrating one of her books. He was surprised, but not speechless, he assures. The story was sent to him and he began working. It took about a year and a half of field work, near Cambridge, which took him 10 to 12 hours a day. Six months conceptualizing and structuring, eight months to paint, in watercolour over paper. Altogether, there were 70 watercolours in a scale of about 20 and 40 percent over the printing size.

During all of the process, the author and the illustrator spoke twice. “The first time, she called me saying she was very happy with the illustrations. Later was I who called her asking for some drawings by her children to include in the book, which she sent.” The reactions were being transmitted by her publisher. In the end, she asked for “one or two small changes.” From the work in the Norwegian castle, she “imported” the ambience and the monkeys into the book. That’s it. Those are the most striking decorative elements, inspired in Chantilly Castle, in Paris. “For that work, I used the chinoiserie technique from the XVIII century, the European import from the Chinese decorative elements in big palatian ambiances. One of the best examples is found in Chantilly. It is a big hallway in a castle above the Oslo fiord. Although built in the 20’s, only one room looks like it is from that time. All the rest was made up to be somewhat revivalist. Then I suggested the chinoiserie scheme, rococo. The room was all divided into panels. I did sixteen, six meters each. I used a series of decorative elements, using monkeys dressed like in Chantilly.

It was the monkeys that seduced Madonna. This element is found throughout the whole book. “I had a lot of fun with this work”, he says, sort of reflecting about an experience he would like to repeat. There only ha to be an invitation and empathy towards the story. He says that having worked with Madonna doesn’t make him superior, but he does acknowledge the importance that having his name next to the material girl’s has for his career. “Inevitably, it will play a determinant role.”

His life

Living in London since 1986 when, with a scholarship from Gulbenkian Foundation, he applied for a Masters Degree in Painting in the Royal College of Art, Rui Paes has several distinctions in a curriculum divided into figurative, monochromatic and, then again, figurative. Natural from Pemba, Mozambique (a former Portuguese colony), where he was born in 1957, son of an architect and a writer, he started painting long before he could copie Raphael’s works. I was about seven or eight. “Each time I got bored with my brothers, I would isolate myself with my pencils and paints, in a sort of island no one else had access to,” he remembers, underlining details from the beach he left at eleven to study in an Aveiro high school. He was divided between Europe and Africa untill he entered the Fine Arts Faculy, in Porto, after he hesitated about going to a course connected to the environment. Flunking in chemistry got him away. “It was for the bet,” he now recognises.

When he finished his degree in painting, in 1981, he taught in a high school. At the same time, he showed his art and won the Revelation Award at the National Exhibit of Modern Art. In the meanwhile, he applied for a job at the Royal College of Art. He got accepted. “I had never painted for so many hours everyday. I was given a place to paint and I had to create my own discipline.” He then did a clean, monochromatic painting. It was a phase, Figurative painting would come back when he started to work with Graham Rust, one of the masters of pictoric illusion. He would never leave trompe-l’oeil again, which he cultivated in between canvas. Never would he also leave London.

In Portugal he has a son. And also works in private collections. Next year, there may be an exhibit.

From Diario de Noticias
Translated from Portuguese by our Team member Pam Anderson