From the 3,500-year-old Chinese vase to the modernist painting: art destroyed in the Bolsonaro assault

The work of the Brazilian painter Di Cavalcanti was damaged by the coup plotters who assaulted the headquarters of the Presidency.UESLEI MARCELINO (REUTERS)

When Oscar Niemeyer designed the monumental buildings of Brasilia, a city out of nowhere in 1960, he surely did not imagine that one day an angry mob would climb up its elegant white marble ramps to attack the heart of Brazilian democracy.

The effects of this invasion are now being evaluated: serious damage to the buildings of the National Congress, the Supreme Court and the Planalto Palace, but also to the furniture and works of art inside.

At the moment, the Government does not have a definitive list of damages, but the Minister of Culture, Margareth Menezes, initially spoke of a minimum of 20 million reais (4 million dollars, 3.6 million euros) taking into account only the works of art, not counting the serious damage to the buildings.

Specifying a figure is difficult because pieces of incalculable value disappeared.

For example, a Chinese vase from the Shang dynasty that is almost 3,500 years old.

It was a gift from the Chinese government to the Chamber of Deputies, but the coup plotters shattered it into smithereens in moments.

The most emblematic work damaged by the radical Bolsonaristas is a painting by the modernist painter Di Cavalcanti, one of the greatest icons of the Brazilian modernist movement of the 1920s.

Located in the so-called Noble Hall of the Planalto palace, the seat of the presidency, the painting, which represents several women on a walk and is popularly known as 'Las Mulatas' (the author did not name his works), was torn into seven different points.

At first glance it looks like the effect of a dagger, but they were stoned, as the painter's daughter, Elisabeth Di Cavalcanti, explained over the phone, still in a state of shock at what happened on Sunday.

“I am not moved by the feeling of anger or indignation, I am moved by the feeling of fear.

How can something like this happen?

Now there is no choice but to accept it, but as a daughter it saddens me, because Di Cavalcanti was the painter who best knew how to translate 'Brazilian'.

Did the Brazilian who did that know Di Cavalcanti?

Of course not, ”she says resignedly.

This work came into the hands of the Government after the bankruptcy of an insurance company, its previous owner, and for years it adorned the most important part of the presidential palace.

Its value is estimated at a minimum of eight million reais.

The artist's daughter is confident that it can be restored without any problems.

Works that are more complex to repair may not suffer the same fate, such as a 17th-century clock that belonged to Balthazar Martinot, the watchmaker to King Louis XIV.

The watch was a gift from the French Court to the Portuguese King João VI, and arrived in Brazil when the royal family left Lisbon for Rio to flee from Napoleon.

Of the delicate object, only the casing remained.

According to the Brazilian Government, only two watches by this author were known;

the other is on display at the Palace of Versailles.

Gifts from delegations from Iran, Hungary, Algeria, or Indonesia were also seriously damaged.

A huge pearl that was given away a few years ago by the Qatari authorities is missing.

The list of damaged works is long: The polychrome wooden wall that Athos Bulcão, known for his geometrically shaped tiles, designed to delimit the spacious halls of the Chamber of Deputies, was perforated at its base and a tapestry by the multifaceted landscape artist Burle Marx was used as a pee wall.

Several sculptures suffered damage.

by Bruno Giorgi, was completely destroyed, and the statue representing Justice blindfolded in front of the Supreme Court, a hieratic granite figure that Alfredo Ceschiatti created in 1961, was mercilessly graffitied with allusions to the Supreme Court judges. .

While paintings and sculptures go to the technical reserve to be pampered by restorers, Niemeyer's buildings, works of art in themselves, bare their scars.

In the Planalto palace, most of the glass on the ground floor façade is missing, and the Supreme Court, just opposite, is in even worse condition.

The Plaza de los Tres Poderes itself, a huge expanse covered in mosaics of Portuguese stones, also suffered damage to the pavement.

The entire complex has been a World Heritage Site since 1987. That year Brasilia became the first place in the world less than 100 years old to receive such a distinction.

Unesco quickly contacted the Brazilian authorities to offer collaboration.

The Institute of National Historical and Artistic Heritage (IPHAN) is already mobilizing its team of restorers and is even considering receiving donations, given the avalanche of expressions of solidarity received in recent days.

In any case, we work with the hypothesis that it is the vandals themselves who pay the cost of the restorations, although that will depend on the judicial processes.

In addition, this body linked to the Ministry of Culture will also design a monument or memorial to remember the coup attempt.

"Everything that happened has to be marked in the history of Brazil as an example of what not to do," said the president of IPHAN, Leandro Grass, who compared this future memorial with those that remember the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis.

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