Brazilian academic art was the institutionalized expression of the entire art system that prevailed in Brazil from the early 19th century until the early 20th century, based on the principles of European art academies. It originated with the Royal School of Sciences, Arts and Crafts founded by John VI in 1816, encouraged by the French Artistic Mission, flourished under the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts and the patronage of Dom Pedro II, and concluded with the incorporation of its republican successor, the National School of Fine Arts, into the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in 1931.Eulálio, Alexandre. "The 19th Century". In Tradition and Rupture. Synthesis of Brazilian Art and Culture. São Paulo: São Paulo Biennial Foundation, 1984-85, p. 121
Academicism, in its strictest sense, refers to a structured artistic training program at the post-secondary level, comparable to contemporary university education. In Brazil, this system was introduced during the period of Neoclassicism, a style it significantly helped to disseminate, and later absorbed Romantic, Realist, Symbolist, and other aesthetics that characterized the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, while filtering out elements that did not align with the Academy’s formality.Biscardi, Afrânio & Rocha, Frederico Almeida. Fernandes, Cybele Vidal Neto.
The close connection between Brazilian academic art and the established power broadened the term’s meaning, making national Academicism not only a teaching system but also a philosophical movement and a political act. It served as a laboratory for formulating significant symbols of national identity and a platform for their dissemination, contributing to making its period of influence one of the richest, most complex, and dynamic in the history of Brazilian art. Its substantial legacy in art remains significant to this day.Vale, Vanda Arantes do. Although the term Academicism is most commonly applied in Brazilian Art History to the period outlined above, the academic teaching system survived the challenges of Modernism and 20th-century avant-garde movements, albeit transformed, integrating into the environment of modern university art schools, which today produce and theorize art at a high level and are direct descendants of the School founded by John VI and the French.Amaral, Aracy.
The European academic model and the Brazilian context
Art academies emerged in the late Renaissance. Previously, artistic production occurred through artisan guilds and collective workshops, known as guilds, which often functioned as professional associations where learning was essentially informal. There were no regular classes or a systematized methodology. Seeking to organize this system and elevate the status of art from a skilled craft to a liberal profession, the Accademia del Disegno was founded in Florence in 1563, under the encouragement of Vasari and the patronage of Cosimo de’ Medici.Smith, Paul & Wilde, Carolyn. Initially offering only theoretical lectures and anatomy classes, and in practice not differing greatly from other guilds, the Accademia del Disegno soon became a respected educational institution, responsible for training painters, sculptors, and architects, and serving as a governmental advisory body for all matters related to the city’s public works.Henninger-Voss, Mary. In 1593, the Accademia di San Luca was established in Rome with a more structured organization and a consistent class schedule.Olsewski, Edward J. Over time, the academic education system became highly standardized, based on practical and theoretical principles, including observational drawing, copying established models, geometry, anatomy, and perspective, as well as history and philosophy. Adopting the idea that art could be taught comprehensively and that talent alone was insufficient without disciplined and methodical training, the notion of individual originality was problematized, but art was distinguished from craft by placing the artist in a higher intellectual and professional sphere. For academics, the starting point was tradition, believing that adopting the same theoretical and technical principles observed in the works of established masters would enable achieving the same level of quality.Tarasantichi, Ruth.
Following the Italian example, in 1648, the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture was founded in Paris with the same goal of teaching art as a liberal profession. With financial support from the government of Louis XIV and under the direction of Le Brun, the French Academy developed a robust aesthetic orthodoxy and a philosophy aligned with the state’s propagandistic policies, controlling nearly all art produced in France and exerting significant influence throughout Europe, particularly during Neoclassicism. From this source, Brazilian Academicism emerged. Thus, "Academicism" is not so much a specific style, as academics existed since the 16th century, spanning successive styles—Renaissance, Mannerism, Baroque, Neoclassicism, etc.—but rather a teaching system guided by traditional and formalized pedagogical and aesthetic criteria. The term academic artist strictly refers to someone who entered and was trained in any of the art academies.
Until the early 19th century, art education in Brazil was largely informal, occurring in artists’ workshops with their disciples, much like European guilds. The state subsidized only a modest school, the Royal School of Drawing and Figure, founded in 1800 in Rio de Janeiro and directed by Manuel Dias de Oliveira. The transfer of the Portuguese court to Brazil in 1808 brought profound cultural, social, and institutional changes to the country, then a colony with an extractive and agrarian economy. Institutions, public services, and general administration were reorganized, and there was a need to align Brazil with the more advanced cultural currents developing in Europe at the time. Simultaneously, there was a severe shortage of trained professionals to meet the growing demands for artisans and masters in various technical specialties, such as architecture, urban planning, and engineering, which, in the tradition of the time, overlapped and were often taught in art courses, valuable for the industrialization and modernization of the colony, soon elevated to the status of United Kingdom with Portugal. Thus, the establishment of an art academy in Brazil addressed various practical and cultural needs.
In this rapidly transforming scenario, the French Artistic Mission arrived in 1816, proposing the creation of an art school inspired by the respected French Academy model. Its project involved establishing graduate courses for training both future artists and technicians in auxiliary activities such as modeling, interior design, carpentry, and others. Joachim Lebreton, the Mission’s leader and project idealizer, systematized the process, evaluation and approval criteria, class schedule, and curriculum, suggested ways to utilize graduates publicly, and planned the expansion of official collections with their works, also specifying the human and material resources needed for the School’s proper functioning. Pragmatically recognizing that great art would persist even in a world transformed by the French Revolution, merely shifting from monarchies to the wealthy bourgeoisie,Cipiniuk, Alberto. Lebreton proposed a project rooted in a significantly ancient tradition but eminently practical and proven effective over time, unprecedented in Brazil and even in Portugal. Immediately embraced by John VI, this proposal led to the founding of the Royal School of Sciences, Arts and Crafts. This created the initial conditions for the emergence of a new art system in Brazil, inextricably linked to the academy’s operation as an institution. However, in its early years, the School faced serious difficulties and took at least ten years to become established and fully operational, leading to its reopening on November 5, 1826, in the presence of Emperor Dom Pedro I, as the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts.Denis, pp. 56-57
Beginnings: Lebreton’s Academy
Academicism represented a revolution in Brazilian art teaching methods, constituting the vanguard of its time. Afonso Taunay summarized its significance by stating that "to the empiricism or automatism of the current artistic and professional learning processes, it substituted a methodology. The anti-didactic era ended, and the didactic era began.... In painting—the ancient, mythology, and history replaced the almost exclusively sacred work of the colonial and late viceregal ‘saint-makers’". Regarding the method, teaching would develop in the following stages:Lebreton, Joachim.
General drawing and copying models from masters, for all students; Drawing of figures and nature, and elements of modeling for sculptors; Academic painting with live models for painters; sculpture with live models for sculptors, and study in the ateliers of master engravers and designers for students of these specialties.
The same three-stage structure, divided into theoretical and practical parts, would be used for architecture:
In theory: History of architecture through the study of ancient works; Construction and perspective; Stereotomy. In practice: Drawing; Copying models and studying dimensions; Composition.
At the same time, Lebreton envisioned the education of auxiliary artisans with the introduction of technical courses. His plan was extensively detailed, but it is known that its guidelines were not fully implemented in the initial establishment of the Imperial Academy. Lebreton soon died and was succeeded by Henrique da Silva, a staunch opponent of the French, who eliminated technical courses, leading Debret to lament the direction things were taking, causing "the Academy’s teaching to succumb to the errors and vices of the Ancien Régime".Cardoso, Rafael. Martins, Alexandre.
Stability
The study of Academicism in Brazil is tied to the history of the Imperial Academy, the central hub for disseminating the new teaching and art production system that became dominant throughout Brazil, serving as a model for similar courses elsewhere. Lebreton’s formula was comprehensive but could never be fully implemented. The Lino Coutinho Reform of 1831 essentially reaffirmed the school’s dual role as a center for training artists and artisans, as envisioned by the Frenchman, after a partially operational start. This reform guided the management of Félix Taunay, son of Nicolas, who had returned to France disillusioned with the delays and intrigues surrounding the project. Félix organized the Academy’s library, translated foreign theoretical reference sources, established improvement awards through scholarships, and organized the General Exhibitions, though he also did not support technical courses.