These days, the blackbirds and sparrows that visit his garden are enough for him. “I don’t want to have pets, I have all these birds around me, and they’re free”. And the birdsong provides perfect background music to fill the long silences between the painter’s answers.  This perhaps reflects the fact that he feels that “people waste a lot of time thinking about nothing. They are programmed to have an absurdly busy lifestyle and when they have a moment when they can just contemplate, they sit in front of the TV as an escape. They lose sight of themselves and others, and instead sit and watch humanity being aped. No offence to apes”.  His works, Chimpanzé com um funil e uma tesoura (Chimpanzee with a funnel and scissors), Chimpanzé com compasso (Chimpanzee with a compass), or a Quadratura do círculo (Squaring the circle), should also take no offence.

The artist’s predilection for chimpanzees and tigers, among other animals, was not a conscious decision. He didn’t sit down at a table and think about what animals to include in his work. “Things come to you. Somehow I stumble upon these images and they stimulate me.” And thus, this “world of pets”, as the writer Mário Cláudio calls Pomar’s work, is born. Arca de Noé (Noah’s Ark), painted in 2003, “is the memory of an experience, or the totality of the experience of my encounter with the world.” It is, however, in his studio that he says he feels protected. His friend António Lobo Antunes says that it is the place where Pomar “acquires a sort of animal presence”. Outside of the studio, the artist frees his senses so that he is able to capture unique moments of humanity.

Taking in the world

Those moments are enhanced by travel, which the artist experiences in a holistic way: “I’m not a person who separates things in different drawers. Once I went on holiday to Albufeira when it was still a fishing village. Obviously I go with the intention of relaxing and swimming, and so on, but the whole of me goes, I am still fully engaged”. Pomar’s trip to the Amazon to watch the shooting of Kuarup (a film made by Ruy Guerra in the late 80s) is another good example of this pleasure. It was originally meant to have been a week-long trip, but turned into a two-month stay. “That just gives you an idea of what I’m like at making plans and sticking to them”, he notes. But who wouldn’t stay in a place where “joie de vivre is the norm”?

The painter tells us of the fantastic view of the river he had from his hut. It was “the place where children and adolescents would come and swim, play and show themselves in all their beauty. They were an energy-filled presence”. The artist reveals his sense of humour when he adds: “I usually say that the day the Indians have mains water (laughter), the women will get cellulite. They’re the ones who go and fetch water, and the spring is quite far from the village. This is what keeps them slim. Although they’re strong-bodied, they don’t have cellulite. If they did, I don’t think they’d be as attractive to look at!”

Joking aside, the painter reveals that during this trip, which resulted in paintings such as Banho das Crianças no Tuatuari, he dedicated himself mostly to drawing. This was in order to “be in a more receptive state. Painting could have distracted me from fully absorbing things”.

During his artistic journey there has been time for everything. “There were times when I worked with music, and others when, as a result of John Cage’s influence, silence was music.” At one stage Pomar was hooked on flamenco, at another on Beethoven, but he admits that there is no voluntary relationship between music and his paintings. “Even when there is no choice, there actually is”, he concedes. Perhaps because of that, he can’t see himself as a professional portrait artist. “I don’t want to set up easel and follow instructions.” Nevertheless, he has already produced portraits of famous people such as Lévi Strauss and Mário Soares.

The painter-poet

Júlio Pomar has published several books. Two of his books of poetry which stand out are Alguns Eventos and Tratado Dito e Feito. He has also written collections of essays, one of which is E então a Pintura? (quoted above).  Looking back, the painter-poet remembers that he would have written his first verses at the end of the 1930s when he was at the Escola António Arroio. He was mates with the great poet Mário Cesariny, and this resulted in a “prolific poetic output which they shared when they skipped classes and spent time watching the flocks of sheep in the fields of Areeiro”.

These days he still writes with a sense of urgency and “out of necessity for my body and soul”. This certainly applies when he is near to finishing a book, but he admits to not being very methodical. “I like being called by the writing. When it comes to that idea of males being authoritarian and females passive, I usually say that I’m more female. I like to be led by the writing and painting. It’s almost like they are commanding me”.

Without wanting to establish a rule, he confesses: “When I write or paint it’s as though I was playing an instrument for the first time. But there is always a difference between what you think you’re going to come up with and the actual end result. All the work, joy and drama of writing lie in that difference, and the steps you take, forward and back.

Another feeling that Pomar always has in relation to his work is that it is like an untidy house, or that he hasn’t fully expressed himself. This sometimes leads to the destruction of the work or to radical changes. Mário Cláudio sees him as belonging in that category of people who are “curious about life”, that he is a “glutton in the good sense of the word”, a trait that he has had since he was an adolescent. It was this hunger that drove him to Paris when he was already a renowned artist. He went there to be closer to the work of the great masters.  His eagerness is revealed by the feeling of rapture he gets from Paolo Uccello’s Battle of San Romano, Poussin’s “intellectual schemes”, Rubens’ joy, or Goya, his first passion.

His work continues. He recently finished a stamp for the commemoration of the Centenary of the Republic, and the Fundação Júlio Pomar (Júlio Pomar Foundation) is expected to open its doors to the public by the end of the year. “It was originally conceived of as a studio and later as a place for exhibitions”. It’s where you can see the work of the artist who never runs out of ideas. For us, there will also always be the possibility to return and see his art as though for the first time.