Villa walks through the city

Tributes to Villa-Lobos on the 50th Anniversary of his death have come from visual as well as musical artists. One example is the Tribute to Villa-Lobos at the UN. And there are some great new caricatures of Villa-Lobos (here and here), who has been the subject of as many clever but good-natured caricatures as any famous composer I know of.

This project by artist Manu Maltez looks really cool. Maltez drew the cover of Projeto B's new CD A Viagem de Villa-Lobos. That image of a driven composer is only part of a sixty-page book of a an imagined trip by Villa-Lobos through Rio de Janeiro. Maltez's blog includes a number of arresting images from this project. They're a bit of a challenge coming after the jolly caricatures of a kindly and self-possessed celebrity.

Here's a bit of Google-translated commentary from Maltez's blog:

Presence is what is the person after it has gone. I wanted to draw this atmosphere. Carve smoke. One of the things I like most about this art thing is that we can suggest both without having to confirm anything.

Guess who's charuto?



Rio was Villa's city, and it's the city of Maltez.

I took the guy to walk through my city just to see what was left.
Us.