The larger amount of this work focuses Minas Gerais - Caeté, Congonohas do
Campo, Diamantina, Sabará, Tiradentes, São João del Rei, Santa Bárbara and
Ouro Preto - but are of national interest for they reveal the known
patterns and lived all around the country since the 17th century.
That is how we come to know the main house of the Meaghype mill, in
Pernambuco; the huge building where lived, besides the family, relations
and friends and aggregates…we recall the fountains that were responsible
for the fresh water of the city… we imagine the odors coming from the
kitchen with its huge wood- burner stove… we rest on colonial terraces and
blindfold the intimacy of the windows with trellis and chatterer, a muslim
heritage that attended to the coyness imposed by family life…
In the Norfini paintings, one can glimpse the murmor of shops, grocery
stores and workshops located in the ground floor of two-story houses…
convents, churches, chapels and oratories in the street corners are a
dominant trace in the north and south of the country, baptismal fonts and
lavabo dishes in stone. In the streets, protection against the damages
done to houses by carriages pulled by horsess, and in the doors, keyholes
in iron and knockers that had the effect of an electric bell calls your
attention.
The house of the Contractor, the Pillory, the Treasury, the slave neckband,
reminds us of our economy. Recognizing the importance of the richn,ess of
information and the high aesthetic and artistic quality contained in the
156 paintings, Gustavo Barroso, then director of the National Museum of
History bought them from the artist in 1930, to be incorporated to the
Museum's collection, where it remains in the Historic Archives. The
itinerant exhibition is composed of 56 46x38,5cms reproductions, and for
further details call (5521) 550-9259.
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