ISSN: 2347-7474 International Journal Advances in Social Science and Humanities Available online at: www.ijassh.com RESEARCH ARTICLE Aleijadinho: A Brief Commentary on His Life and Work* João Vicente Ganzarolli de Oliveira Professor and Researcher of the Centre of Reference in Assistive Technology of the Tércio Pacitti Institute of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Abstract This article deals with some aspects of the life and work of the Brazilian artist Antônio Francisco Lisboa (1738?-1814), dubbed Aleijadinho ("the small cripple") due to the physical deformations he had to cope with. In spite of his physical disability, he became the protagonist of Brazilian colonial art. Slave by birth, Aleijadinho is a living metaphor of the mix of races that influenced and still influences the process of cultural formation not only of Brazil, but of America as a whole. Inspired in a famous Aleijadinho’s sculpture, this Christ was painted by the Ucranican artist Dmitrij Ismaïlovich (1892-1976), who adopted Brasil as his homeland. The drawing is a modest homage I pay to both. Introduction Let us talk about Aleijadinho: the most radiated from Rome since the 16th century as important artist who lived during colonial a reaction against the iconoclastic wave led times (1500-1815) in Brazil. He was born by Luther, Calvin and the like. Produced around 1738 and died in 1814. Actually between 1800 and 1805, Aleijadinho’s “Aleijadinho” is a nickname that means masterpiece is the sculptural group of the “little cripple”, and is due to the physical twelve Prophets that borders and adorns deformations caused by some strange splendidly the shrine of Bom Jesus do diseases he contracted during his adult life Matosinhos, in the city of Congonhas do [1]. Among the terrible consequences of Campo. By that time, Aleijadinho had to tie those diseases, he suffered from continuous the chisel around his wrists so that he could and excruciating pain, lost almost all the give form to the stone. The more his body fingers from his hands and feet, and became was dominated by the awful diseases, the completely blind two years before his death. more his art approached perfection. Such a Having worked mainly as sculptor and fact allows us to establish an analogy architect, he is the key figure for the between Aleijadinho and Beethoven – never development of the Brazilian Baroque and forgetting that both became great artists in Rococo styles. His themes are always spite of their physical and psychological religious. Historically, his art stems from the drama. In both cases, however, suffering Counter-Reformation phenomenon that caused by disability may have contributed *I express my gratitude to my colleagues Myriam Ribeiro, Tamara Quírico, Mauro Lino do Nascimento and Rubens Queiroz for the important suggestions and technical support. Joao Vicente Ganzarolli de Oliveira| Feb. 2017| Vol.5 | Issue 2 |01-06 1 Available online at: www.ijassh.com indirectly to the deeper development of the Germain Bazin, who regards Aleijadinho as artistic potential. Depending on the way one a genius [7]. José Marianno Filho, a accepts it, suffering purifies the soul, as Brazilian researcher, considers impossible experience proves [2]. that Aleijadinho could sculpt with the hammer and the chisel tied around his Aleijadinho’s real name was Antônio wrists. In any case, Francisco Lisboa. Ethnically speaking, he was a mestizo: the natural son of the With no doubt he [José Mariano Filho] Portuguese architect Manuel Francisco ignored that Renoir asked people to do the Lisboa and of an African slave called Isabel. same with the brush, between the forefinger He was born in Vila Rica, now called Ouro and the thumb of the paralysed right hand. Preto, the most representative city of the so Which art is more difficult, with impotent called Brazilian colonial style, whose hands, than painting or sculpture? We are exuberance is inspired in European Baroque not talking about these handless virtuosi and Rococo. Created in 1711, Vila Rica was a that stay on the streets writing or playing very rich city indeed, thanks to gold mining piano with their feet [8]. [3]. Rapidly it became the third city of Brazil, in terms of richness and political As far as I can see, Aleijadinho was surely a importance [4]. good sculptor, possibly a great one. But he was not a genius, as Michelangelo and However, by the end of the 18th century, the Bernini were. Doubtless he deserves our city was already in decline, as an effect of respect and admiration, especially the shortage of the precious metal. The considering the enormous burden of majority of Vila Rica’s constructions dates prejudices he had face during his life and from the middle of this same century. This even after his death. But there is no point in fact leads us to conclude that Aleijadinho replacing a prejudice by a political correct spent a significant part of his life in direct myth: both drive us away from the truth. contact with many other artists. Aleijadinho’s life and work were deeply Just like the Indians, the Africans who came investigated by the French scholar Germain to Brazil as slaves during the colonial period Bazin (1901-1990); still nowadays his book had little or nothing of real importance to Aleijadinho et la sculpture baroque au enrich the new country in terms of artistic Brésil, first published in France, in 1963, is production. This fact is quite remarkable, the main reference for the comprehension of since sculpture and painting flourished the themes concerning the “Bernini of the southwards Sahara centuries before the tropics”, as Aleijadinho is called sometimes Muslims started to invade those regions (8th [5]. century), making of the African pre- historical practice of enslaving prisoners of Certainly Aleijadinho’s statues are superior war a profitable business of transcontinental both in quantity and in quality to those of scope [9]. Aleijadinho, thinks Germain his Brazilian contemporary sculptures. But Bazin, represents a phenomenon of atavism: this does not justify the fact that the other he could have inherited the “plastic skills of Brazilian colonial artists were not granted his black ancestors”[10]. the same systematic approach Aleijadinho Catholicism and Art received. Skilled and historically important artists such as Francisco Xavier de Brito, Aleijadinho’s century is marked, in Europe, Francisco Vieira Servas, Manoel Inácio da by the emancipation of the so called Costa, Mestre Valentim, Mestre de Piranga mechanical arts, a group that included the and many others are still waiting for due plastic arts; in the Middle Ages, those were attention from the art historians. generally considered inferior in relation to Aleijadinho’s value as an artist has not the liberal arts. The very expression fine arts always been recognised. The Austrian were created only in the 18th century, as a essayist Stephan Zweig considers result of a slow process of emancipation, Aleijadinho as a minor artist [6] - a triggered by the Renaissance. completely different opinion from that of Joao Vicente Ganzarolli de Oliveira| Feb. 2017| Vol.5 | Issue 2 |01-06 2 Available online at: www.ijassh.com The subdivision of the seven artes liberales people devoted to plastic arts remained in into the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, anonymity; he was the first one to transcend dialectic) and quadrivium (arithmetic, the boundary between the artisan and the geometry, astronomy and music) comes from artist, ascending this way to a nobler step in early Middle Ages and was inherited from the society. late Antiquity; priority was given to the arts in closer relation to the intellect, while those Catholic art of the period follows the new “made by hands”, such as sculpture, painting rules established by the Council of Trent, and even architecture tended to occupy an which lasted from 1545 until 1563 [14]. inferior range, as it has already been Among the consequences regarding plastic mentioned here. Although emphasised in arts, was the stimulus to venerate the saints Carolingian times, the old scheme of the through their painted and carved or sculpted liberal arts became inadequate during the images; and in the process of diffusing the 12th and 13th centuries, due to the growth of new patterns for the binomial faith-art, the learning caused by the rise of the Jesuit Order played a decisive rule? This is universities. In fact, valid not only for Europe, but also for the new lands incorporated to the Catholic (...) Huge of St. Victor was probably the first world, such as the American colonies, mainly to formulate a scheme of seven mechanical divided between Spain and Portugal. The arts corresponding to the seven liberal arts, following quotation, from Émile Mâle, gives and this scheme influenced many important us an idea of how close was the relationship authors of the subsequent period, such as between the Counter-Reformation and the Vincent of Beauvais and Thomas Aquinas. development of the arts in the Western The seven mechanical arts, like the seven World during the 16th, 17th and 18th liberal arts earlier, also appeared in artistic centuries: representations, and they are worth listing: lanificium, armatura, navigatio, agricultura, This art conceived in the tragic years in venatio, medicina, theatrica. Architecture as which the Papacy had witnessed the well as various branches of sculpture and of separation of a great part of the Christianity painting are listed, along with other craft from Rome could no longer, as in the arts, as subdivisions of armatura, and thus Middle Ages, express the relief in the faith; occupy a quite subordinated place among the it had to fight, affirm and refute. It became mechanical arts [11]. the allied of the Counter-Reformation and was one of the forms of the Catholic During the Renaissance, European artists apologia.