The landscape architect and passionate ecologist’s paintings were brought to life in public parks and gardens across Brazil, including the distinctive promenade in Copacabana
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Roberto Burle Marx is famous for his verdant, tropical gardens – sharp, globular flowerbeds overspilling with fronds and tendrils, serpentine paths and pools of still green water. Burle Marx was a passionate ecologist, lending his name to more than 50 plant species (the photo below was captured during a 1974 botanical expedition in Ecuador). ‘One may even think of a plant as a note’, he mused. ‘Played in one chord, it will sound in a particular way; in another chord, its value will be altered.’ Burle Marx was also a painter, sculptor, printmaker and musician. This gouache painting is a half-size study for a handwoven Aubusson tapestry, depicting a tangle of bodies morphing into puddles of earth and ochre – as easily a landscape plan for a sandy garden as a figurative painting
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This piece is featured in the AR October issue on Brazil – click here to purchase your copy today
