Drawing and writing guide | José Saramago

This novel is the true fame of Saramaigo and his first step towards his position at the peak of global creativity, and after its publication, he achieved success after success without ever separating himself from the issues of his country and the world. In this novel, and with his distinctive style that characterizes him alone, Saramaigo places "life on paintings and the lines of calligraphy" to understand it, to find the true meaning of many of its complexities philosophically, to confront them with many questions seeking answers through the life of the protagonist, a portrait painter, who paints with a hand that rebels against the brush and holds the pen, which says "In painting, there is a moment when the canvas cannot bear another brushstroke, while these lines can extend infinitely." And so, the portrait painter writes his autobiography to merge his life with the important events that Portugal experienced in the period preceding the Carnation Revolution of 1974, reflecting the face of writing and the face of painting, and the echo of the work resonates with the idea that morality and aesthetics are inseparable, and that art should be the voice of society's conscience, and that the image is a means of achieving knowledge.