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 , .

Abstract

This article deals with some aspects of the life and work of the Brazilian artist Antônio Francisco Lisboa (1738?-1814), dubbed ("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 , 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 do diseases he contracted during his adult life Matosinhos, in the city of 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 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 . 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

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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 . 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. It defended the same things that had already achieved a status that could Protestantism attacked: the Virgin, the hardly be imagined in Antiquity and the saints, the Papacy, the images, the middle Ages [12]. For the Brazilian society of sacraments, the charitable institutions, the colonial times, the artist was more than an prayers for the deaths. It developed some artisan, with basically the same professional themes that were almost completely new if status of workers who made certain kinds of compared with the art of the past; it handicrafts, such as pottery and embroidery. expressed new feelings and new forms of The hierarchy among the arts depended devotion [15]. directly on their ecclesiastical function: “The principal arts were those of the carpenters, In Brazil, the first Jesuits arrived in 1549, the stoneworkers, wood carvers and along with Tomé de Souza, the Portuguese sculptors, who executed the innumerable governor of the whole colony, who founded altars of the Portuguese-Brazilian churches” the city of Salvador, the former capital. [13]. Naturally, other Catholic orders were also interested in promoting artistic production Aleijadinho represents a landmark in in Brazil. Friar Agostinho da Piedade (1590 - Brazilian History of Art. To a certain extent, 1661) and Friar Agostinho de Jesus (1600 - his position in Brazil is similar to that of 1661), the most renowned sculptors of the Giotto di Bondone (1226-1337) and his 17th century in Brazil, were both contemporaries in Europe: before him, Benedictines (until 1760,

Joao Vicente Ganzarolli de Oliveira| Feb. 2017| Vol.5 | Issue 2 |01-06 3 Available online at: www.ijassh.com was confined to only two materials: wood (...), enemy of slavery and proud of his and terracotta). Jesuits, however, were the liberty [18]. protagonists not only in the process of transmitting the new faith to the Indians Germain Bazin demonstrates that but also in that of initiating them in the art Aleijadinho suffered several kinds of social of sculpting and in manual activities in and professional discrimination, precisely general [16]. because he was a half-caste man. His African blood was an impediment for him to Aleijadinho as a Living Metaphor of sign contracts [19]. Brazilian Colonial Society To a large extent, Aleijadinho’s life and work It is evident that Aleijadinho had a strong reflect the drama of miscegenation in the enough character to surmount the social New World. Despite having been liberated obstacles of the society in which he lived. from slavery since birth, he was not accepted Notwithstanding, he was far from being a as an equal among the Portuguese and their sociable fellow. As his disease progressed, he pure descendants; neither could he feel at became more and more isolated from other ease among black people, who worked as people; preferring the company of stone and slaves; in other words, he was “a black wood to that of men and human society, among the whites” and “a white among the Aleijadinho found spiritual refuge in art and blacks”. The racial prejudices he experienced religion. The Bible was his main source of in Brazil were analogous to those suffered by relief and inspiration. Aleijadinho did not the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega (1539 - 1616) become rich, albeit the fact of having worked in the Spanish world, son of an Indian during his whole life. He divided his woman and a white Spanish man. As well as payment with Maurício, his slave. Rodrigo Garcilaso, Aleijadinho personifies the racial Bretas, his biographer, says that he spent a hybridism that characterises Latin America lot of money in alms to poor people [20]. The population till nowadays [17]. As regards Brazilian writer Mário de Andrade asserts social context, being a mestizo was very that Aleijadinho searched every day in the common during the colonial period. The Bible “the comforting reward of being loved continuous ethnic mixtures among by God [21]. European, African and American people created new patterns all around Latin He had little conventional education; America. probably was initiated in the field of arts by his father; and it is possible that he had Aleijadinho had to cope with the heavy learned also from the painter João Gomes burden of prejudices involving the fact of Batista. Anyway, his success as an artist is descending from slaves. Furthermore, due mostly to his great talent and to his progressive illness deformed his body, giving efforts as self-taught. By the time of his him an awful appearance. Humiliations and death, in 1814, he had left an enormous frustrations of all kinds, not to mention amount of works of art. Aleijadinho offers psychological conflicts, must have been the most complete synthesis of frequent in Aleijadinho’ life. About this produced during the colonial period. topic, Fernando Jorge writes: Much has been said and written about the Mestizo, with brown-coloured skin, belonging artistic trends assimilated by Aleijadinho. to a casta considered being inferior, seen His style stems mainly from Baroque and with disgust and contempt, the artist seems Rococo works of art which he was acquainted to have been a misanthrope, evasive, in the to see in his homeland and neighbourhood. complex colonial society of the 18th century, Nonetheless, some of his works descend from amalgamated by the heterogeneous crowd of other sources. As an example, we have the nobles, poets, magistrates, lords and slaves. pulpits of the Church of São Francisco in However, contemplating him at a long , which reveal almost explicitly distance, he appears to us as the an inspiration in a relief from Lorenzo indisputable symbol of the Brazilian man Ghiberti [22]. In any case, Aleijadinho has

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his own artistic trademark, so to say. His art precisely how he looked like; no portrait of has not the rigidity that we often see in the him can be considered authentic. This is just works produced in Portugal during the one more gap among many others in the “Manuelino” period. In close analogy with Brazilian History of Art. Aleijadinho became the poet Gregório de Matos Guerra, who an ugly man; what a contrast when we lived in in the 17th century, imagine him side by side with his beautiful Aleijadinho is ironic: he gives mestizo’s artistic creations! Aleijadinho is a living features to his sculpted angels; the Roman metaphor of Brazilian colonial society, with soldiers that mistreat Jesus in His its countless paradoxes; paradoxes that sufferings of Christ by the Crucifixion are inevitably blur our comprehension whenever just grotesque in their appearance; besides, we try to understand Aleijadinho as an he used to caricature his enemies in the artist, let alone as a man. The more deeper statues, perhaps as a kind of revenge we delve into Antônio Francisco Lisboa’s life [23].Speaking of irony, we do not know and work, the more difficult the questions that emerge. References

1 According to his main biographer, Rodrigo José in his view, Aleijadinho would be a kind of Ferreira Bretas, the first symptoms of his myth or legend. Bazin refutes this thesis diseases appeared in 1777. Bretas, who was vehemently (see Idem, pp. 117 - 123). born in the same year that marks Aleijadinho’s 8 Germain Bazin. Idem, p. 113. death, supposes that his body was attacked by a combination of a regional disease called 9 See Enrique Martínez López. Tablero de zamparina, syphilis and scurvy (see Germain Ajedrez. Imágenes del negro heroico en la Bazin. O Aleijadinho e a escultura barroca no comedia española y en la literatura e Brasil [translated by Mariza Murray], 2nd ed., iconografía sacra del Brasil esclavista, Paris: Rio de Janeiro, Record, no date, p. 111). Centre Culturel Calouste Gulbenkian, 1998, p. 156; Pierre Bertaux. África. Desde la pré- 2 See, for instance, João Vicente Ganzarolli de historia hasta los años sesenta, (translated by Oliveira. “Suffering, Challenge and Manuel Ramón Alarcón), México/Buenos Overcoming. A Christian Perspective on Aires/Madrid, Siglo Ventiuno, 1994, p. 32, 251 Disability”, in IJAHSS (International Journal et passim; Wolfgang Benz e Hermann Graml. of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences), vol. I, El siglo XX. III: problemas mundiales entre los n. 3, October 2016, pp. 30-37. dos bloques de poder, 16ª. ed., México/Buenos 3 “Vila Rica” means “rich village”. The name Aires, Siglo Ventiuno, 2001, p. 348; Leandro “Ouro Preto” (= “black gold”) is due to the dark Narloch. Guia politicamente incorreto da colour of the gold found in the region. história do Brasil, 2ª ed., , Leya, 2011, p. 83; and Horst Gründer. Eine 4 Simão Ferreira Machado, a rich Portuguese Geschichte der europäischen Expansion: von businessman of the 18th century, described Vila Entdeckern und Eroberern zum Kolonialismus, Rica as the head of whole America, and the Stuttgart, Theiss, 2003, pp. 142-153 et passim. “precious pearl of Brazil” (quoted by Fernando Jorge. O Aleijadinho, 5ª ed., São Paulo, Difusão 10 Germain Bazin. O Aleijadinho e a escultura Européia do Livro, 1971, p. 25). barroca no Brasil, op. cit., p. 66. 5 See, for instance, Idem, p. 53. Germain Bazin 11 Paul Oskar Kristeller. “The Modern System of calls Aleijadinho “Michelangelo of the tropics” the Arts”, in Renaissance Thought and the (O Aleijadinho e a escultura barroca no Brasil, Arts, Princeton/New Jersey, Princeton op. cit., p. 153). For his contemporaries, he was University Press, 1990, p. 175; see also Edgard a “Brazilian Praxiteles” (see Myriam Ribeiro. De Bruyne. Historia de la Estética (translated Aleijadinho. Passos e profetas, São Paulo, by Armando Suarez, [O. P.]), Madrid, B.A.C., Itatiaia / EDUSP, 1984, p. 19). 1963, pp. 72 e 524. 6 See Fernando Jorge. O Aleijadinho, op. cit., p. 12 Lucian of Samosata’s (c. 125- after 180) famous 58. statement can be considered as a portrait of the prevalent mentality among the ancients and 7 See O Aleijadinho e a escultura barroca no medieval: “(...) everybody admires the works of Brasil, op. cit., p. 125. Brazilian historian the great sculptors, but nobody wants to be a Augusto de Lima Júnior (1889-1970) defended sculptor himself.” (quoted by Plutarch. Pericles, the thesis that Aleijadinho did not even exist; 1 - 2).

Joao Vicente Ganzarolli de Oliveira| Feb. 2017| Vol.5 | Issue 2 |01-06 5 Available online at: www.ijassh.com 13 Germain Bazin. O Aleijadinho e a escultura 18 O Aleijadinho, op. cit., p. 28. barroca no Brasil, op. cit., p. 77. 19 See O Aleijadinho e a escultura barroca no 14 See Émile Mâle. El arte religioso del siglo XII Brasil, op. cit., pp. 87- 88. al siglo XVIII (translated by Juan José 20 See O Aleijadinho, op. cit., p. 208. Arreola), México, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1952, p. 160. 21 Quoted in Ibidem. 15 Idem, pp. 191 - 192. 22 See Lourival Gomes Machado. “Os púlpitos de São Francisco de Assis de Ouro Preto. 16 See Germain Bazin. O Aleijadinho e a Influência de Lorenzo Ghiberti na obra de escultura barroca no Brasil, op. cit., p. 49. Antônio Francisco Lisboa”, in Barroco Mineiro, 17 See Irving A. Leonard. Ensayos y sembranzas: 2ª ed., São Paulo, Perspectiva, 1973, pp. 223- bosquejos históricos y literarios de la América 256. Latina colonial (trad. Juan José Utrilla) 23 See Fernando Jorge. O Aleijadinho, op. cit., p. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1990, pp. 54. 63 e 64.

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