Unicamp - Press Room

A glance at the images reproduced on this page is enough to send the reader back to Brazilian history books. They are lithographs of watercolors by Jean-Baptiste Debret. So widespread to illustrate and support the work of our historians, they ended up dissociated from the texts produced by the artist himself to compose the three volumes of Viagem Pitoresca e Histórica ao Brasil, published in Paris between 1834 and 1839. Faithful to his training as a “history painter ”, Debret maintained the practice of documentation, complementing the paintings with informative and interpretative texts. But from him, who defined himself as a man of “pen and brush”, his brushes stood out.

“While most foreign travelers were only concerned with classifying the elements of nature and the characters that made up their paintings, Debret had the deliberate purpose of creating a story from the systematization of information. In three volumes, he organizes the works in a progressive line, from the Indians to political and religious institutions, contextualizing each watercolor to its period. There is no other work of this size combining texts with 150 images”, says historian Valéria Alves Esteves Lima.

Graduated from UFRJ, Valéria already had a master's degree in art history from the Institute of Philosophy and Human Sciences (IFCH) at Unicamp, where she also defended her doctoral thesis under the guidance of professor Robert Wayne Slenes. Initially, she intended to continue her dissertation on the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts, but found herself focusing on Debret – one of the school's founders and teachers – and on the illustrative documentation aiming to present to Europe the image of a Brazil in regeneration with the arrival of the Portuguese Court, and which would inevitably reach the level of civilization of the countries of the old continent.

Debret was a disciple of his cousin Jacques-Louis David, leader of the French neoclassical school. He accompanied his cousin during the French Revolution and at the court of Napoleon Bonaparte, as the author of works celebrating the emperor's deeds. More than the decline of the Napoleonic empire, the dismay at his son's death in 1815 was what motivated his arrival in Brazil the following year, joining a French mission hired to create a fine arts school in the colony that would become the Imperial Academy.

Debret landed in Rio de Janeiro in 1816, precisely when Brazil was elevated to the status of United Kingdom. He stayed here for 16 years, a time that gave him great knowledge of the Brazilian reality, even more so enjoying proximity to power – he lent his art to the royal family – and in the capital that was experiencing a period of economic, urban and cultural development, with the inauguration of libraries, theaters and literary and scientific academies. “Debret’s works would be a testimony that contrasts with the image of a monarchy that fled from Europe, unprepared, decadent and caricatured. In his view, neither João VI and Pedro I, nor the country's capabilities deserved contempt”, says the historian.

For the French painter, the royal family brought tradition and symbolized the constituted power, marking the end of colonial administration. The knowledge acquired at the French court and in his studies of history and philosophy allowed him to understand the political moment well and must have influenced the development of his work. “He understands the elevation to United Kingdom as the beginning of the country's regeneration process, which then catches the train of civilization. It was then that the effects of the opening of the ports and the resumption of Portugal's relations with European nations were felt, which promoted the entry of more foreigners into Brazil. According to Debret, this European presence was fundamental”, explains Valéria Lima.

Miscegenation – The researcher pays attention to the Enlightenment ideas of Debret, who saw in education and the racial and cultural miscegenation of Indians and blacks with Europeans, the means for these populations to access levels of civilization unattainable if they remained in isolation. Holding power and without losing intense and prolonged contact with the inhabitants, the artist had a privileged view of the regime, attesting to the conditions for dialogue for this racial mixture. “His reading is curious, as he sees nothing diminishing in the proposal. He simply thought that miscegenation was already happening, that it was necessary to recognize it and be aware that the progress desired for the country also depended on it”, observes Valéria.

This does not mean that Debret praised or placed other races on an equal footing with whites. Without contesting the racial theories of the time, such as speculation about the size of the skull, the painter viewed black people as indolent and mentally limited, admiring only their physical strength. “His interest in miscegenation was in the formation of a biological type capable of surviving the climate considered unbearable for white people and that was intellectually capable of keeping up with European civilization,” he adds. In relation to the natives, the artist organized the material from the most “primitive” indigenous people to the civilized ones, in order to show that it was a natural tendency. “He treats primitivism as part of the past, something folkloric. He evaluates the association of Indians with whites as inevitable, hoping that the civilized Indians themselves would rescue those most averse to civilization”.

Picturesque and Historical Trip to Brazil

A Due to the habit of observation, natural in a history painter, I was led to spontaneously extract the characteristic features of the objects that surrounded me; In this way, my drawings made in Brazil portray especially the national or family scenes of the people among whom I spent sixteen years.
(About his artistic affiliation, vol. 1)

It is in the wild Indian that we find the principle and germ of everything that the human spirit conceived as philosophical, elevated, admirable and even bizarre ideas, applied by him solely through instinct and inspiration.
(About the indigenous people, vol. 1)

My intention was to compose a true Brazilian historical work, in which a civilization progressively develops that already honors its people, naturally endowed with the most precious qualities, to deserve an advantageous parallel with the most outstanding nations of the ancient continent.
(On the proposal to create a historical work, vol.1)

However, by a singular contrast, it was the hand of a king of Portugal that awakened the Brazilian after three centuries of apathy when, fleeing from Europe, he came to establish his throne in the shade of these pleasant palm trees, only to abandon, it is true, this work of regeneration inspired by need. However, civilization had germinated and Brazil, aware of its future, kept the firstborn of this fickle protector, and made him an independent emperor whose sovereign power definitively annulled the claims of Portuguese power over its former possessions in America. Thus emancipated, the land of Alvarez Cabral governs itself and owes its ever-increasing prosperity to its own lights.
(On the role of the Portuguese monarchy, vol. 3).