Cries of the Nations

By Silva Maranhão

Introduction

Why are we here? Where did we come from? Where are we going?

The project “Cries of the Nations” is composed of 100 paintings made with the technique of acrylic and oil on canvas. The style is surrealistic, modern-figurative, and symbolic. The paintings are different sizes and together take up around 500 square meters of canvas. The project was realized over a 20-year period of research, and is inspired by the strong and precise features of the culture and architecture of the Mayan and Egyptian civilizations.

The theme exposes and transforms into a modern presentation the problem of the limitations of man, with the assistance of a persona called the “Global Bumpkin” (from the Portuguese “Matuto Global,” “matuto” being a Brazilian term for a “country bumpkin”), who plays a part in a play on theocracy that spans the entire project. He is a man with a small, obscured head and large feet, who has an advantageous physique but leaves diminishing traces. He is the representative of all humanity which, concerning the intellect, uses only seven to eight percent of its rational capacity. This contrasts with the use of 90 to 93% of his physical mass to traverse an existence that does not last more than 80 years on average. In an attempt to govern himself apart from God, he creates a confusing and false political system, a democratic-religious system, and an economic system with social inequality.

The exposition denounces the power of imperfection that has enslaved mankind in a way that is subtle and undetectable by modern minds and reveals the patron of the interests of universal misery: The “Devil,” god of death and his invisible co-regents.  These figures use the false political-religious system, with the assistance of the economic system as a shroud for their failed administration of the democratic masses, the modern social slave: Mankind.

The artist's source of information: The Bible, with its theocratic vision of Christianity; the internet with its globalization of all happenings of humanity; vehicles of communication such as newspapers, magazines, and television with its daily updates, providing a sacred service to human minds: To rationalize if man or “God” should govern the world in which we live?

Note:

We are presently scheduling public exhibitions of the project “Cries of the Nations” in North America and Europe.

For more information on the artist, please click on the following: www.theartofsilvamaranhao.com