A pintura de história no Brasil do século XIX: Panorama introdutório

Abstract

A rapid overview of Brazilian painting accompanied the political chronology of Brazil in the nineteenth century when the country passed from colony and United Kingdom to Empire to Republic. Not only did artists' relationships with power explain this kind of painting but also their desire to impose their own visions of the past in this incipient intellectual milieu. This became part of a process of constructing memory and forgetfulness peculiar to historical paintings. Fears concerning fragmentation occurring in Latin America with the collapse of Spanish control led Brazil to produce an iconography that emphasized the continuity between past and present as well as its own unity in defense of an external enemy; silence regarding slavery and internal revolts which would not be represented until the Republic and then in the context of local iconographies in keeping with the federative spirit.