Brazilian Sculpture
The earliest Brazilian sculpture has been traced back to the lat sixteenth century, shortly after the Portuguese established their first colonies in the newly discovered territory. Through out the century that followed, most of the sculpture in Brazil had been brought over from Brazil, and they mostly displayed strong Baroque features. This Baroque style flourished the most within the country’s religious culture and it remained the predominant style of sculpture well into the nineteenth century. However, after the first few decades of the nineteenth century, sculptural activity decreased, and it wasn’t revived until the government and the public took a new interest in the art. Modernism also created a period of intense interest in sculpture which led to the research of a new language of sculpture, and many great achievements in the art. Contemporary Brazilian sculpture knows receives great worldwide respect.
The mid seventeenth century was when sculpture by Brazilian artists really began to take hold and the first national school of sculpture. This period was largely spearheaded by men who were seen as the founders of Brazilian sculpture, Domingos da Conceicao, Agostinho de Jesus, and Agostinho. Through out the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the major centers of sculpture production were located in Salvador, Olinda, Minas Gerais, and Sao Paulo. While there was still a great deal of Portuguese sculpture being imported from overseas, native sculptors became more and more proliferate.
There are a lot of sculpture pieces that survive the Baroque era that have no recorded author, but there are a few names that stand out as the main players of the era, namely Francisco das Chagas, Francisco Xavier de Brito, Manuel Inacio da Costa, and FranciscoVieira Servas. The biggest name of all was Aleijadinho who was active in Minas Gerais and left behind many great works. There are also two sepcial genres of sculpture that emerged in the Baroque sculpture. One was the missionary sculpture and the other was the so-called de roca statue. Missionary sculptures were generally produced by Indians with the help of Jesuit missionaries as part of a method of teaching religion to the Indians. The second genre was instrumental in exciting piety among the people and was used in dramatic plays, manipulated like puppets.
In 1808 the Portuguese court escaped the Napoleonic invasion by coming to Brazil, and some French refugees who became known as the French Artistic Mission proposed that an Academy of the Arts be created. This new Brazilian academy was called the Royal School of Sciences and dominated Brazilian art, including sculpture for more than one hundred years.
Unfortunately, the production of sculpture declined severely in the nineteenth century. Religious tradition had always been the greatest source of inspiration but it was replaced by secular concerns and only a few important sculptors remained. The only great name who emerged from this period was Rodolpho Bernardelli. Other sculptors like Marc Reffez, Francisco Elidio Panfiro, Honorato Manoel de Lima, and Franacisco Manuel Chaves Pinheiro also deserve mention for their talents.