Dorival Caymmi - Personal Life

Personal Life

When I think about Brazilian music, I will always think of Dorival Caymmi. He is an incredibly sensitive person, an incredible creation. And this is to say nothing of the painter in him, because Dorival is also a wonderful painter.

Although Caymmi earned his fame through music, he was also known to a lesser degree for his paintings. From 1943 to 1945, he regularly attended a drawing and painting class at the Escola de Belas Artes, a fine arts school in Rio de Janeiro. Even after discontinuing his formal study, he painted for the rest of his life. He practiced Candomblé, an Afro-Brazilian religion characterized by belief in spirit-gods and ritualistic practices involving mediumship. Candomblé was his father's religion, and Caymmi gradually involved himself more with it as an adult, when his friends invited him to accompany them to religious ceremonies and parties. Caymmi was also a naturist, and when he was in Bahia, he liked to bathe nude in the Lagoa do Abaeté (Abaeté Lagoon) with a group of friends. He stated to the newspaper Valor Econômico: "We rolled around in palm leaves and slipped through the mountains of sand. Some people didn't like this, but most understood that we weren't naked for unclean reasons."