Brazilian Arts, 1914
From “Arts, Science, and Hobbies” in Brazil and the Brazilians by George James Bruce, 1914.
From: 1914 C.E. To: 1914 C.E.
Location: Rio de Janeiro
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From “Arts, Science, and Hobbies” in Brazil and the Brazilians by George James Bruce, 1914.
That a distinct Brazilian school of painters has been evolved will not be denied. When this was first recognised is not so easily determined. The earliest missionary ecclesiastics brought with them to the country the art they had acquired in Europe. Some of them were art enthusiasts, and naturally imparted what they knew in art to those they came to teach in other things. Thus drawing, painting, sculpture, music, and literary composition were taught in the first schools established. Amongst the pupils were children of Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Italian artists, who no doubt inherited their parents' talents.
One of the first painters to produce in Brazil pictures of high value was an ecclesiastic named Ricardo do Pilar, a specimen of whose work may be seen in the Church of the Benedictine Convent in Rio de Janeiro. He was a foreigner, however, and to Jose de Oliveira, born in 1700 at Rio de Janeiro, belongs the honour of being the first Brazilian to become famous as a painter.
Many specimens of his work may be seen in cathedrals and churches. Later famous names were Jose Leandro, Emilio Taunay, the first to take up Brazilian landscape painting, Correa de Lima, Manuel de Araujo of Porto Alegre, known later as Baron de Santo Angelo, whose works are known in Europe, Pedro Americo de Mello, who has left many notable pictures, Victor de Lima, whose best-known picture is "The First Mass in Brazil."
There were many others, including some first-class portrait painters, whose works are still acknowledged to be in the foremost rank. Perhaps Jose Fleming de Almeida, a nineteenth-century landscape and figure painter, could put in the best claim to have originated the Brazilian school. Born in Sao Paulo, he studied for years in Europe, and returned to give his country some boldly original conceptions. His style was Lepagian with marked devotion to elaborate technique. Of the modern men Bernardelli, excelling in portraiture; Amoedo, an imaginative painter of scriptural subjects; Belmiro, a figure painter; Weingartner, the cowboy painter of Rio Grande do Sul; Visconti, a follower of Velasquez, and Da Costa, a landscape painter of exceeding ability, are names I can most easily remember amongst the nationals.
There are a number of good foreign painters living in Brazil whose works are welcome additions to the local art galleries.
The first sculptor to turn out any noteworthy work was Francisco Pinheiro, a coloured man born in Rio de Janeiro. Several statues of the Emperor Dom Pedro II, and various other works stand to his credit. None of the other sculptors who have passed away achieved anything like greatness. Several of those still living are doing first-class work. Bernardelli, at present director of the Fine Arts School in Rio de Janeiro, has given ample proof that he must be regarded as one of the world's great masters.
His marble group, "Christ and the Adulteress," exhibited in Europe, attracted high commendation from famous artists, and every year he continues to turn out further masterpieces. Other prominent sculptors are Franca, Berna, Correa Lima, a pupil of Bernardelli, and D'Assis.
There are quite a host of less prominent men, whose labours are devoted to producing what is required in the erection of public buildings. Schools of Art exist in nearly all the capitals, and exhibitions of the pupils' work frequently contain the product of unmistakable genius. I was much struck with work shown by Italian and Brazilian boys in the great School of Fine Arts of Sao Paulo. In drawing, oil, and water-colour painting, modelling in compositions, woods, and metals, the average of results was excellent.
At the Affonso Penna Institute, a school for boys on the Rio Negro, over a thousand miles inland, I was amazed to see what could be accomplished in artistic work by some of the poorest Brazilian children. A box with lid of many hundred pieces of Amazon woods artistically inlaid, made entirely by Indian boys, was a trophy given me, which evoked much admiration in London. It could scarcely be credited that the article was not turned out by a first-class cabinetmaker's workshop.
Bruce, George James. Brazil and the Brazilians. Dodd, Mead and Company, 1914.
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