José Batista Marques

The situation shown in the painting of José Baptista Marques seems, at first glance, the image of a catastrophe. The quick glance detects the realism of the image, and the black and white suggests an image from a news clipping. The image of a shipwreck evokes, first of all, the mediatic accident of the luxury liner Titanic. It is with the memory of this occurrence that a doubt arises: this is not the reminiscence of the crossing of the icy waters of the Atlantic Ocean in the beginning of the last century, when the Titanic collided with an iceberg and sunk on a foggy night. Let us return to the image that seemed familiar, and let us observe the landscape in more detail. We realize the impossibility of the situation, the conflicting position of the ship, and the black and white now evokes the colorless images of dreams. And the unrealism of the situation returns the memory of an image that was never observed but only imagined. Most of the area of the canvas is not interventioned, and the representation concentrates in the center of the painting, dispersing the tension of the image towards the outer limits. This moment of suspension of the impossible trip is witnessed by some passengers from the upper decks, and by us who observe from the exterior, breathing other narratives, memories, or sensations into the image.