Our Purpose

Our journey here is the search for us as great expositors, who have manifested all beauty and complexity of Brazil, of its flora, fauna, people, culture, and society.

We provide a view of the history of art in Brazil, especially works created during the centuries after the arrival of European explorers. From the detailed and realistic paintings of Albert Eckhout to the lush landscapes of Frans Post, our site shows the incredible art and skill of these early artists.

Of course, our site is more than a mere composite of images. Through research into the associated cultural and historical context of each piece, we also make insightful commentary and analysis, presenting themes and issues they address in general.

Either one is an art aficionado, a history zealot, or simply curious about that thrilling period Brazilians went through; there is the right spot to delve and learn about the rich artistic heritage of such a pulsating and eclectic land. So please come with us, therefore, on a journey across time and art into the first wonders of that legacy.

A Vision of what was Brazil Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries

The crossing of the Atlantic was part of the plan for overseas expansion dreamed of by the peoples of Europe.e might say that the interest in America was a "glimpse into the distance" and that the  "appearance" of the part of the·globe depended on the European achievement in giving shape and visibility to the New World. Description  and depiction were the means to make it a reality, to extricate it from the darkness. History is also manifested by visual means.  What we see is what we know, what we find to be believable.

Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, America represented a new horizon for the Europeans, an unknown world waiting to be explored and revealed.   The quest for the unknown has deep-seated motives,  corresponding  to the desire for interior growth.   In cultural history, words such as journey, unknown and horizon are the favoured metaphors for developments in thought and knowledge.  The conquest of America by the peoples of  Europe can also be seen as the history of the attraction and longing excited by the distant and the remote.

It is reasonable to examine the meaning of the voyages of discovery to the New World, without restricting the debate simply  to  the  economic  and  political factors  which  motivated  them.   What  dreams  and  expectations  fired  the imagination  of the European scientists who went to study tropical nature?  What drove amateur and  professional artists to discover Brazilian landscapes in the19th century?

Within the fantastic realms of The Odyssey, suggests Italo Calvino, we find the mythical archetype of all journeys and all travellers, the adventure of all adventures.  We all identify with the search of Ulysses, who  overcomes all obstacles and recovers the memory of the past and returns to Ithaca.

Fig1 - Joao Teixeira Albernaz -
Captaincy of Sao Vicente 

Thus we Brazilians seek the works of art of  the European  travellers  in the country  between  the  17th and 19th centuries  in  order  to  rescue  our  mental  pictures  from  oblivion  and  to delight in  our   recognition  of  Brazilian phenomena.  The images created from the perspective of the travellers, rather than affording a  glimpse of Brazilian realities, reveal European ways of seeing and thinking.  Before reminding us of the landscapes and way of life of the Americas, they make us focus on the dense layer of representation and think about the artistic version before questioning the facts.

These images are part of the construction of an European identity. They show the ways in which cultures see themselves and other cultures, and how they see similarities and differences. Thus Brazil is revealed as a contradiction between remembering and forgetting, between the culture of the travellers and the inhabitants. It is seen more clearly in the tension between identity and difference, in the inherently intercultural situation of the works shown here.

We have gathered together paintings, drawings and tapestries by European artists who portrayed Brazil, either by direct observation or through hearsay, between the 17th and 19th centuries. This chronological period has the advantage of showing not only the best examples of artistic imagination about Brazil - as in the case of the Dutch painting of the 17th century - but also the recurring theme of man in a state of nature in the works of the 19th century romantics.

As will be seen, landscapes in the broadest sense are the central motif of the exhibition. The Portuguese word paisagem (landscape)comes from país (country), which in tum derives from the Latin word pagus. A landscape is the meeting point between nature and culture: it shows itself as the physical world, as moulded and apprehended by the world of culture.  While many people suppose that the observed world is always the former, these works show that the construction of a landscape conforms to the aesthetic canons governing the beautiful, the pleasing and the sublime, and that the places correspond to artistic standards of taste. The landscape is still the geographical and historical background to human action.

During the age of discovery, two separate impulses contributed to form the image of Brazil. On the one hand, speculation about the unknown, symbols and myths, fabulous tales; on the other, direct observation and calculations, leading to map-making. In the case of nautical charts and the mapping of the continent, representation was intended to precede and guide action. The precision of the drawing will save the navigator from fantastic delusions. Nevertheless, a symbolic dimension and a political dimension are always present together in the representational process.