Iluminogravuras 1980

“Iluminogravura” is a neologism, created by Suassuna by joining the words iluminura (pictorial illumination) and gravura (etching). This term serves to designate an artistic object that is at the same time remote and current and that allies the techniques of medieval ornamentation to the modern processes of etching on paper. The iluminogravura was produced on books that were copied by hand, and which, besides being illustrated, were also ornamented with capitulars and floral or geometric motifs, spread along the margins of the paper.

In the case of the iluminogravura, Suassuna produced, with black India ink on paper, a matrix of the illustration and of the handwritten text. Next, he printed copies of this matrix, using the modernoffset process. Each copy was then worked upon manually, colored with a paintbrush and gouache, oil and watercolor paints. Thus, although not entirely manual, the process was also not entirely a reproduction, since, in reality, no iluminogravura is identical to another one. The iluminogravuras form two albums produced in the decade of 1980, each of them containing ten boards packed in a wooden box: Dez Sonetos com Mote Alheio (1980) and Sonetos de Albano Cervonegro (1985). Each album is a semi-handmade book, with loose pages, and an edition of around fifty copies.