Brazilian Art
Brazil is a vast country that has an extremely diverse culture, which is represented in many of the country’s different cultural aspects. In Brazil’s earliest history, not much was done in terms of artistic expression because Brazil was a colony of Brazil, and the Portuguese civilization established in the colony was very limited in the early years. While it is certain that the indigenous inhabitants of the Brazilian region produced art of their own, very little evidence of this remains, and so the term “Brazilian Art” is generally used to refer to art produced after the origination of Brazil in the Western sense.
The oldest art form found in Brazil are cave paintings done by natives that date back to around 13,000 BC, one surviving example of indigenous artwork. These paintings generally show geometric patterns and animal forms. The indigenous peoples that remain in Brazil today still cultivate ancient Indian arts of body painting, cult statuettes, pottery, and feather art.
The earliest Western artists to arrive in Brazil were Roman Catholic priests who were brought from Portugal to supposedly civilize the local Indians. These priests often used music, plays, and painting to teach religion, and thus began to produce art. Two such priests, Agostinho de Jesus and Agostinho da Piedade produced some of the first known sculptures while Joao Felipe Bettendorff, Belchior Paulo, and Ricardo do Pilar did some of the first paintings.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Baroque art began to flourish in Brazil, with the centers of creativity being Bahia, Pernambuco, and Minas Gerais in particular. The greatest Brazilian artists that emerged from the Baroque era were the painter Manuel da Costa Ataide and the sultpter and architect Aleijadinho.
In 1816, the French Artistic Mission arrived in Brazil and strongly reinforced the neoclassical style which has previously only been seen in Brazil in a few timid attempts. The leader of the Mission was Joachim Lebreton later created the Academy of Fine Arts which was later reconstructed into the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts It redefined the concept of artistic education and provided the foundation for an explosion of Brazilian painting, sculpture, crafts, architecture, and graphic art. Romanticism would later be introduced to Brazil, though in a unique form. In Europe, romanticism showed overwhelming amounts of dramaticism, violence, fantasy, death, but in Brazil it was made more academic and palatial, so excesses were shunned.
When modern and contemporary art began to flourish in Brazil in the early twentieth century, there was a great struggle between old schools and more modernist trends. In 1922, a Week of Modern Art festival was held in Sao Paulo and later became a landmark in the history of Brazilian art. It was received with great criticism by the more conservative members of society, but it included many monumental works of art as well as lectures, concerts, and poetry readings. It introduced modern trends to the Brazilian public, including Cubism, Expressionism, and Surrealism, all derived from more European versions. These trends would influence Brazilian art for decades to come.