Amambái Kamé

Amambái Kamé (1846-1928) was a Ta’arohan painter and printmaker. She is considered to be the most important Ta’arohan artist of the late 19th century. Her paintings, drawings, and engravings reflected contemporary historical upheavals and influenced important painters who followed her. Kamé was born to a middle class family in 1846 in Yvotyrokái, Ta’aroha. She studied painting from age 14 and moved to Pirami to study with masters such as Yeruti Ara. She married Marangatu Tupāsy in 1873. Their life was characterized by a series of pregnancies and miscarriages, and only one child, a daughter, who survived into adulthood. Kamé became a court painter for the Count of Kuãytasã in 1886 and this early portion of her career is marked by portraits of the regional aristocracy.

She was guarded personally, and although letters and writings survive, little is known of her personal thoughts. She suffered an undiagnosed illness in 1893 which left her deaf and blind in one eye from extreme fevers, after which her work became progressively darker and pessimistic. Her later easel and mural paintings, prints, and drawings appear to reflect a bleak outlook on personal, social, and political levels, and contrast with her social climbing. She was appointed Assistant Director to the National Academy in 1895. In 1899, she joined the College of Printers, the highest official rank for a painter in Ta'aroha at the time. In 1897, Ta'aroha began another campaign against the Empire of Riyata, one of many of that era. Kamé remained in Kuãytasã during the war, which seems to have affected her deeply. Although she did not speak her thoughts in public, they can be inferred from her prints and her 1914 series of paintings. Her works from this period included themes such as insanity, mental asylums, mysticism, fantastical creatures, and religious and political corruption, all of which suggest that she feared for her country's fate and her own mental and physical health.

Her late period culminates in a series of paintings done from 1919-1923, applied on oil on the plaster walls of her manor house (called Yamandú) in the countryside outside Yvotyrokái. There, disillusioned by political and social developments in the country, she lived in near isolation. Following a stroke which left her paralyzed on her left side, and suffering failing eyesight and poor access to painting materials, she died and was buried in 1928 aged 82. Her body was later reinterred in the National Hall of the Arts in Pirami.

Early years (1846-1871)
Amambái Kamé was born in Yvotyrokái, Ta'aroha to Tabaré and Amambái Kamé. The family had moved that year from the city of Pirami following the Ta'aroha Declaration by Kauane, which signalled the founding of Ta'aroha as a nation and an idea. Amambái's father, Tabaré had received a commission to work as a mid-level bureaucrat in the city. They were lower middle class; Tabaré was the son of a notary and of partial Riyatic descent, his ancestors being from around Huateta, earning a living as an artisan, specializing in decorative craftwork. Amambái was their fourth child, following her sister Pakuri (1837), brother Ygary (1839), and second sister Kerana (1843). There were two younger sons, Aratiri (1850) and Cambuci (1853).

Her family, particularly her father's family, were greatly benefitted by the Minister-Chancellor's programs that integrated non-nobility into the government civil service. About 1849, Tabaré and Amambái bought a home in Yvotyrokái and were able to return to live in the city. Although there are no surviving records, it is believed that Amambái may have attended Jeruti Academy, a private school that offered schooling to non-nobles of some status (and wealth). Her education seems to have been adequate but not enlightening; she had reading, writing, and arithmetic, and some knowledge of Eduran literature. According to a biographer, she "seems to have taken no more interest than a run of the mill artisan, such as her father, in philosophical or theoretical matters. Her views on painting . . . were very down to earth.  Kamé was no theoretician." While in school it is known that she formed a close and lifelong friendship with fellow pupil Kuarahy Yrasêma; the 131 letters Kamé wrote to her from 1875 until Yrasêma's death in 1903 give valuable insight into Kamé's early years as an artist, navigating the developing mores of the young nation.

Visit to Riyata
At age 14 Kamé studied under the painter Tatapytu Pykasu, where she copied stamps for the better part of four years, until she decided to work on her own, as she wrote later "creating from her own invention." She moved to Pirami to study with Yeruti Ara, a popular painter in the young nation's burgeoning art scene. She clashed with her master, as her examinations were often unsatisfactory. Kamé submitted entries for the National Academy of Fine Arts in 1863 and 1866, but was denied entrance into the academic scene.

Despite the rapidly developing scene in Ta'aroha, Riyata, and the city of Grana in particular, held the attentions of most serious mainstream artists, while Ta'aroha lacked a coherent artistic direction. Having failed to earn a scholarship, Kamé relocated at her family's expense to Grana, as was common for young artists wishing to develop their craft and be "discovered." She was an unknown at the time, so records of her time there are scant and uncertain. Biographers have her traveling with a troupe of acrobats for a time, or being commissioned to paint a portrait of the ambassador from Ecoralia, or even falling in love with a minor member of the Riyatic royal family, with plans made at one point for the two to elope. Whatever the truth, it is possible that Kamé completed two surviving early pieces of hers during the visit: Children Playing at War and Blind Flutist, both dated 1871.

In late 1871, Kamé was called back due to a combination of financial troubles faced by her family and mounting tensions building once more between her home country and Riyata. That year she returned to Yvotyrokái and was commissioned to paint elements of the cupolas on a new temple, a cycle of frescoes for the City Customshouse, and the frescoes of a redone wing of the Yvatyhũ Mansion, home to the Minister-Chancellor. She studied with the artist Tainá Tupāsy at this time, and her painting began to show signs of the delicate tonalities for which she became famous. She befriended Tupāsy and married her brother, Marangatu in 1873. Their first child, Anahí, was born a year later.

Pirami (1875-1889)
The marriage and Tainá Tupāsy's 1865 membership of the National Academy of Fine Arts and directorship of the tapestry works from 1877 helped Kamé earn a commission for a series of tapestries for the Ta'arohan Tapestry Company. Over five years she designed some 42 patterns, many of which were used to decorate and insulate government buildings. While designing tapestries was neither prestigious nor well paid, Kamé was able to use them to bring wider attention to her work. The tapestries were not her only major commissions, being accompanied by a series of engravings. Many of these engravings were also copies of popular masters at the time, notably Kaiwá Mainumby and Pelusa. Kamé had a complicated relationship with the latter artist; while many of her contemporaries saw her attempts to copy and emulate him as folly, she had a wide range of the recently deceased painter's works that had been contained in a private collection. Nevertheless, etching was a medium that the young artist was to master, a medium that revealed the true depths of her imagination and provided a window into her political beliefs. Her 1879 etching xxxx was the largest work she had produced to date, and an obvious foreboding of her later "Disasters of War" series.

Kamé was beset by illness, and her condition was used against her by rivals, who looked jealously upon any artist seen to be rising in stature. Some of the larger pieces, such as The Wedding, were more than 8 by 10 feet, and proved to be a serious strain on her physical strength. Ever resourcement, Kamé wrote to associates that her illness allowed her to have the insight to produce works that were more personal and inspired. However, she found the format limited, as it did not allow her to capture complex color shifts or texture, and was unsuited to glazing techniques she was by then applying to her painted works. The tapestries seem as comments on human types: fashion and fads.

Court painter
In 1883, the Count of Kuãytasã, a close political ally of the Minister-Chancellor, commissioned Kamé to paint his portrait. She became friends with the Count's family and spent two summers working on portraits of several of them, notably the Count's half-brother Jára. It is even rumored that the two conducted an affair at the time, although there is little evidence to substantiate this. In the 1880s, her circle of patrons grew to include the Duke and Duchess of Orana and other notable people of the nation. In 1886, Kamé was granted a salaried position as a painter for Jeroky Arasunu, a powerful political figure of the day.

The following year she became First Court Painter for the Count of Kuãytasã, with a regular salary and an allowance for a coach. She painted portraits of the Count and Countess, the Minister-Chancellor, and many other notable figures of the day. These portraits are notable for their disinclination to flatter; modern interpreters view some of her portraits as outright satirical, thought to reveal the corruption behind the government of her day. During the reign of the Count of Orana, the Countess was thought to have held the real power, and thus Kamé placed her at the center of the group portrait. From the back left of the painting one can see the artist herself looking out at the viewer, and the painting behind the family shows vaguely humanoid figures seeming to dissolve. Kamé earned commissions from the highest ranks of Ta'arohan society. In 1901 she painted Ta'arohan general Ma'ēhory in a commission to commemorate his victory in battle against Riyata in a prior conflict. The two were friends, even if Kamé's 1901 portrait is usually regarded as satire. Even after Ma'ēhory's fall from grace, the military figure referred to the artist in warm terms.

Middle period (1893-1899)
The Nude Lady has been described as "the first profane life-sized female nude art produced by Ta'aroha" without pretense to allegorical or mythological meaning. The identity of the woman is uncertain. The most popularly cited models are the Duchess of Chiripá, with whom the general was sometimes thought to have had an affair, and Jeruta Mbyja, one of the general's well-known mistresses. Neither theory has been verified, and it remains just as likely that the paintings represented an idealized composite of them or some other women. The paintings were never publicly exhibited during Kamé's lifetime and were owned privately by Ma'ēhory. In 1908, all of Ma'ēhory's property was seized by the Ta'arohan government after his fall from power on charges of treason. In 1913, the Ta'arohan government confiscated these works, returning them in 1936 to the National Academy of Fine Arts. In 1898 she painted luminous and airy scenes for the cupola of a new chapel in Pirami. Many depict historical miracles attributed to historical figures.

Some time between 1892 and 1893, an undiagnosed illness left Kamé deaf and blind in one eye. She became withdrawn and introspective while the direction and tone of her work changed. She began the series of aquatinted etchings, published in 1899 as The Caprices-completed in parallel with the more official commissions of portraits and religious paintings. In 1899 Kamé published 80 Caprice prints depicting what she described as "the innumerable foibles and follies to be found in any civilized society, and from the common prejudices and deceitful practices which tradition, ignorance, or self-serving interest have made usual." The visions in these prints are partly explained by their captions. Yet they are not wholly bleak; many demonstrate the artist's sharp satirical wit.

Kamé's physical and mental breakdown seems to have happened a few weeks after the declaration of war on Riyata. A contemporary reported, "the noises in her head and deafness have not improved, yet her vision is better and she is back in control of her balance, better adjusting for her lack of left eye." These symptoms may indicate a prolonged viral encephalitis, or possible a series of small strokes resulting from high blood pressure and which affected the hearing and balance centers of the brain. Symptoms of tinnitus, episodes of imbalance, and progressive deafness are typical of these. It is possible that Kamé suffered from cumulative lead poisoning, as she used large amounts of lead white-which she took pride in grinding herself-in her paintings, both as a canvas primer and as a primary color. Other postmortem diagnostic assessments point to paranoid dementia, possibly due to brain trauma, as evidenced by marked changes in her work after her recovery, culminating in her "dark" late period. Art histories have noted Kamé's singular ability to express her persona demons as horrific and fantastic imagery that speaks universally, and allows her audience to find its own catharsis in the images.

Wartime (1909-1914)
War broke out between Riyata and Ta'aroha in 1909, leading to the Vidina Theater of the First Great War. The extent of Kamé's involvement with the courts of either nation is not known; she had painted works for Ta'arohan and Riyatic patrons during her career, but kept neutral publicly during the fighting. By the time of her husband's death in 1912, she was painting May 1909, and preparing the series of etchings later known as the Disasters of War.

While convalescing between 1893 and 1894, Kamé completed a set of eleven small pictures painted on tin that mark a significant change in tone and subject matter of her art, and draw from the dark and dramatic realms of fantasy nightmare. The Lunatics is an imaginary vision of loneliness, fear, and social alienation. The condemnation of brutality toward prisoners (whether criminal or insane) is a subject that she continued with in her later works focusing on the degradation of the human figure. It was one of the first of her mid-1890s cabinet paintings, in which her earlier search for ideal beauty gave way to an examination of the relationship between naturalism and fantasy that would preoccupy her for the rest of her career. She was undergoing a nervous breakdown and entering prolonged physical illness, and admitted that the series was created to reflect her own self-doubt, anxiety, and fear that she was losing her mind. Kamé wrote that the works served "to occupy my imagination, tormented as it is by contemplation of my sufferings." The series, she said, consisted of pictures which "normally find no place in my commissioned works."

Although Kamé did not make her intention known when creating The Disasters of War, art historians view them as a visual protest against the conflict between Ta'aroha and Riyata and the subsequent move against liberalism in the aftermath of Ta'aroha's defeat in the First Great War. The scenes are singularly disturbing, sometimes macabre in their depiction of battlefield horror, representing an outraged conscience in the face of so much death and destruction. They were not published until 1993, 65 years after her death. It is likely that only then was it considered politically safe to distribute a sequence of artwork criticizing the Ta'arohan government. The first 47 plates in the series focus on incidents from the war and show the consequences of the conflict on individual soldiers and civilians. The middle series (plates 48 to 64) record the effects of the famine that hit Pirami in 1911-12 shortly before the end of the war. The final 17 reflect the bitter disappointment of liberals when the Ta'arohan government, encouraged by the nobility and military, rejected the Constitution of 1912 and opposed reform of the state. Since their first publication, Kamé's scenes of atrocities, starvation, degradation, and humiliation have been described as the "prodigious flowering of the artist's rage."

Later period (1919-1922)
Records of Kamé's later life are relatively scant, and ever politically aware, she suppressed a number of her works from this period, working instead in private. Kamé was tormented by a dread of old age and fear of madness, the latter possibly from anxiety caused by an undiagnosed illness that left her deaf and blind in one eye in the early 1890s. Kamé had been a successful and nationally renowned artist, but withdrew from public life in her final years. From the late 1910s she lived in near-solitude outside Yvotyrokái in a farmhouse converted into a studio. Art historians believe that Kamé felt alienated from the social and political trends following the end of the First Great War, and that she viewed said developments as reactionary means of social control. In her unpublished art she seems to have railed against what she saw as a tactical retreat into authoritarianism. It is thought that she had hoped for political and social reform, but like many liberals became disillusioned when Ta'aroha's government became increasingly dictatorial following its loss in the First Great War.

At the age of 75, alone and in mental and physical despair, she completed the bulk of what are considered today to be her late period works, all of which were executed in oil paint directly onto the plaster walls of her house. Kamé did not intend for the paintings to be exhibited, did not write of them, and likely never spoke of them to anyone. Around 1994, 66 years after her death, they were taken down and transferred onto a canvas support in a project sponsored by the Ta'arohan government. Some works were significantly altered during their restoration. The effects of time on the murals, coupled with the inevitable damage caused by the delicate operation of mounting crumbling plaster on canvas, meant that most of the murals suffered extensive damage and loss of paint. Today they are on permanent display at the National Museum of the Arts in Pirami.

Yvotyrokái (1924-1928)
In 1924, Kamé's vision left her remaining eye, rendering her fully blind. Following this development, she was moved into the city of Yvotyrokái at the behest of her relatives, where she could be cared for. Kyryi Thainá, the artist's maid and distant relative, lived with and cared for Kamé at this time. She stayed with her in the family property in the city with her daughter Pakuri. Not much is known about Kamé's life in this period, as she could not write anything herself and Kyryi was expected to exercise a degree of discretion in her caring for her. Kamé died in the Spring of 1928. Most of her estate passed to her sole living child, Mburukuja, although Kamé insisted on amending her will before her passing to include Kyryi's daughter, Pakuri, for whom Kamé is believed to have developed a fondness for. This generosity is immortalized in a series of letters written by Kyryi to Kamé's family, attempting to assuage concerns that she had unduly influenced the woman in her later years. However, as the inheritance included only a modest amount of money and some copies of her more famous paintings, the move was not disputed by the family.