From the 16th century onwards, Brazilian craftsmen decorated Roman Catholic churches and convents using the European methods in which they had been trained. During the 17th and 18th centuries, baroque and rococo patterns imported from Portugal dominated Brazil's religious architecture and its interior decor. Many of these churches can be seen today.
The most impressive artist of the whole colonial period was the architect and sculptor Antônio Francisco Lisboa (1738-1814), better known as Aleijadinho (Little Cripple). The self-taught son of a Portuguese settler and a slave mother, he was a master of sophisticated rococo decoration and his painted wood sculpture and stone statuary have a timeless grandeur of feeling.
During the last four decades of the 18th century, new art appeared (especially in Rio de Janeiro) in which religious themes were no longer predominant. Works with temporal themes, such as portraits of exalted personages, became part of Rio's artistic production. At the beginning of the 19th century there was a process of "Europeanization" with the coming of the Portuguese court to Brazil as the result of the invasion of Portugal by Napoleon Bonaparte's troops. Dom João VI, the refugee Portuguese monarch, encouraged Rio de Janeiro's intellectual activity, founding cultural institutions such as the Royal Press and the National Library. In addition, he brought a group of French masters to Brazil to establish an Academy of Arts and Crafts after the style of European art academies and to implement the neoclassic style in the "modernization" plan for the royal capital of Rio de Janeiro.
At the Week of Modern Art held in São Paulo in 1922, artists discussed their dissatisfaction with the "academic" world in all fields of the Brazilian arts. The modernists wished to shock the academicians. It is not clear if the 1922 movement caused or coincided with some changes in outlook, but it certainly opened broad new avenues such as the critical pursuit of quality, the search for new values and the rejection of the old European stereotypes. There was no precursor of genius in Brazilian painting: in the 1920's painting simply emerged out of the shadows of the academy and joined the wave of innovation then sweeping Europe. The techniques were imported, but the moods and themes were clearly Brazilian.
Cândido Portinari (1903-1962) was one of the first Brazilian artists to paint his way to international fame. Coming from a small coffee plantation in the interior of São Paulo, he experimented with Brazilian themes and colours. Portinari captured in his canvases the way of life of ordinary people, conveying their joys and sufferings in a dramatic way. The universality of his work led to invitations and commissions from many sources, among them the monumental murals at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, and murals on the theme of war and peace at the United Nations in New York.
World War II interrupted contact between Brazilian artists and the international art world, even though many foreign artists lived in Brazil. With the end of the war, financial sponsorship began to stimulate artistic production. In the late 1940's the Modern Art Museum was founded in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo got two museums: the Art Museum of São Paulo, founded by Assis Chateaubriand, and the Museum of Modern Art. With the numerous courses given in these museums, art exhibitions and other museum activities were stimulated throughout Brazil.
Today, the art scene in Brazil is self-assured. Brazil's painters, sculptors, engravers and lithographers show their works both within Brazil and in museums and galleries throughout the world.
