Benedito Calixto spent his childhood in the seaside of São Paulo. As a painter and historian, he wrote several essays on the history of his natal State. He made paintings on historic and religious themes, yet his major contribution might be in recording the cities of São Paulo, Santos, and São Vicente, which have been through important transformations in the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, due to the industrialization process setting about. Calixto painted the same urban and coastal landscapes based on the same research or photographic reference. Such was the case of Porto do Bispo’s Slope in Santos, that has two other previous versions, from 1886 and 1887. Although his works are realistic representations, almost documental records of an era, they were made at a later time, without direct observation of the landscape, a practice that demonstrates his concern with fixing a moment of the recent past. The version in the MASP collection presents a wide panorama in lowered shades of a pier, where boats and ships are anchored. A street borders the pier, with a sequence of houses orienting the gaze towards the further mountains and the light blue sky occupying the upper part of the painting, emphasizing the depth of the landscape with a broad horizon. Despite the intense commercial and industrial activity of a port, it is as if this scenery, bearing remnants of colonial architecture, had frozen in time.

— MASP Curatorial Team