3. Shifting Conceptions of Impressionism in Brazil

Cavalcanti​, ​Ana Maria Tavares

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3. Shifting Conceptions of Impressionism in Brazil

Ana Maria Tavares Cavalcanti

Globalizing Impressionism: Reception, Translation, and Transnationalism

In 1974 the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes in Rio de Janeiro celebrated the centenary of French...

Author

Ana Maria Tavares Cavalcanti

PublisherYale University Press

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00198.005

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-20003

Chapter subject tags:Impressionism (Art)--Latin AmericaLandscape painting, Brazilian--19th centuryImpressionism (Art)--FranceArt--Public opinion--Latin America--19th centuryArt criticism--Latin America--History--19th centuryVisconti, Eliseu, 1866-1944Parreiras, Antônio, 1860-1937Albuquerque, Lucílio de, 1877-1939Impressionism (Art)--Brazil

3. Shifting Conceptions of Impressionism in Brazil

Ana Maria Tavares Cavalcanti

In 1974 the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes in Rio de Janeiro celebrated the centenary of French impressionism with an exhibition of paintings by French and other European artists.1Maria Elisa Carrazzoni, ed., Reflexos do impressionismo: Exposição comemorativa do 1° centenário do impressionismo (1874–1974) (Rio de Janeiro: Museu Nacional de Belas Artes, 1974). This catalogue was published in conjunction with the eponymous exhibition at the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes in Rio de Janeiro (October 10–November 3, 1974). I wish to thank Rayane Ribeiro, student from the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, and also thank Beatriz Rosa Cavalcanti, Camila Lopes, Carolina Alves, Claudia Cardoso, Cristiano Nogueira, Isabela Carneiro, Julio Reis, Natália Nicolich, and Tássia Rocha, students from the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, for their help with this research. Entitled Reflections of Impressionism, this exhibition featured nineteen Brazilian artists spanning three generations who painted landscapes, seascapes, portraits, genre scenes, and nudes in light and vibrant colors. While most had studied in Rio de Janeiro at Brazil’s official art school, the Academia Imperial de Belas Artes, others had taken lessons in private studios or had even studied abroad. Few defined themselves as impressionists, and most experimented with different painting styles. In these ways, the Brazilian artists presented in Reflections of Impressionism did not constitute a homogeneous group. In the accompanying exhibition catalogue, Museu Nacional de Belas Artes Director Maria Elisa Carrazzoni noted that her staff had been pleasantly surprised to discover paintings by Brazilian artists “within the topic and the spirit of the exhibition” that had led to “veritable revelations inside the museum storeroom.”2Maria Elisa Carrazzoni, “Filosofia de ação do museu,” in Carrazzoni, Reflexos do impressionismo, 1. Here and elsewhere, unless indicated otherwise, the translations are by Rebecca Atkinson, whom I wish to thank for her professional help. Though French impressionism had been admired in Brazil throughout the twentieth century, many Brazilian impressionist works had been forgotten by the general public and even museum professionals. Reflections of Impressionism thus rediscovered these artists as faint and scattered echoes of impressionism in Brazil. Yet, in the same 1974 exhibition catalogue, Marinho de Azevedo insisted that Brazilian impressionism constituted “more a repercussion than a school.”3 Marinho de Azevedo, “Para os contemporâneos,” in Carrazzoni, Reflexos do impressionismo, 3. Even today, the idea that Brazilian impressionism never amounted to more than a distant reverberation of the French movement prevails.4See João Victor Rossetti Brancato, “Crítica de arte e modernidade no Rio de Janeiro: Intertextualidade na imprensa carioca dos anos 20 a partir de Adalberto Mattos (1888–1966)” (MA thesis, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, 2018). In 2017 the exhibition Impressionism and Brazil at the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo presented works by ten Brazilian painters.5 Felipe Chaimovich, ed., O Impressionismo e o Brasil (São Paulo: Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, 2017). This was published in conjunction with the eponymous exhibition at the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (May 16–August 27, 2017). In a review, art historian Jorge Coli praised the use of the conjunction “and” in the exhibition title, writing that it would be inappropriate to speak of impressionism in Brazil: “Impressionism never existed among us, only sporadic impressionist practices [were] adopted by a few artists with greater or lesser rigor, and very late in the day.”6Jorge Coli, “Brasil e o impressionismo,” Folha de S. Paulo, June 25, 2017, 61.

If being an impressionist requires adhering strictly to the French model—the rejection of academic art, the scientific observation of the vibrations of natural light and contrasting complementary colors, and the exhibition of like-minded artists—then there was no impressionism in Brazil. The country’s painters do not fit this definition. They all maintained ties to the official arts system and exhibited at the salons held by the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes in Rio de Janeiro, where many also taught.7From 1826 to 1889, the official art education establishment in Brazil was called the Academia Imperial de Belas Artes; in November 1890, a year after the proclamation of the Republic of Brazil, the academy was restructured and changed its name to the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes. While some adopted the techniques of impressionism in limited ways, they never abandoned academic drawing and chiaroscuro modeling. Despite these differences, more recent and more global scholarly narratives—motivated by a desire to reconsider impressionism in “peripheral” countries—has largely put to rest the idea that the French model should act as a benchmark against which to evaluate artists from around the world.8See James Elkins, ed., Is Art History Global? (New York: Routledge, 2007); see also Kenneth McConkey, British Impressionism (Oxford: Phaidon, 1989). Instead, this latter contingent of art historians seeks to tell the story of impressionism as a series of exchanges initiated by networks of artists, dealers, and critics who, in turn, facilitated differing approaches and techniques. Consequently, it seems worthwhile to ask: What did Brazilian artists know about French impressionism? How did they conceptualize impressionism? What Brazilian artists did local writers identify as impressionists or impressionist allies? And how did these writers evaluate the movement? Addressing these questions requires scouring newspapers and magazines published in Brazil in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

This study surveys Brazilian periodicals from the 1870s, when the Paris-based impressionists first established their independent exhibition society, until the end of the 1920s, by which time those artists had all died. Such an extensive timeframe demonstrates how the advent of modern art in Brazil in the early 1920s influenced local artistic debates and perspectives on impressionism. The first stage of this research has involved performing a keyword search for the term “impressionism” in the publications available online at the Hemeroteca Digital, the Biblioteca Nacional’s archive of digitized periodicals.9 The database can be accessed at Biblioteca Nacional Digital Brazil, https://bit.ly/3eIGW3G. On the history of the press in Brazil, see Nelson Werneck Sodré, História da imprensa no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Mauad, 1999); and Ana Luiza Martins and Tania Regina De Luca, eds., História da Imprensa no Brasil (São Paulo: Contexto, 2008). While still in the process of being assembled, the Hemeroteca database already contains over 3,800 different newspapers and magazines from the period in question (1870 to 1929); the most important Brazilian newspapers have already been digitized.10 The Brazilian newspapers and magazines containing articles that mention impressionism include: A Cigarra, A Gazeta, Almanaque Garnier, A Manhã, A Noite, A Notícia, Architectura no Brasil, A Tribuna, A União, Brazil, Correio da Manhã, Correio Paulistano, Fon-Fon, Gazeta Litteraria, Gazeta de Notícias, Jornal do Brasil, Kosmos, Movimento Brasileiro, O Imparcial, O Jornal, O Malho, O Paiz, and Revista Americana. The art-related keyword search results for “impressionism” yielded a total of forty-seven articles (table 1). These articles were then read to gauge the authors’ opinions on impressionism. After classifying the articles according to their appraisal of impressionism—positive, balanced, or negative—the results were synthesized (table 2). Even a perfunctory look at these tables reveals that before 1910, the word “impressionism” appeared infrequently; thereafter, it appeared far more often: the number of instances in the 1910s is 133 percent larger than in the 1900s; in the 1920s the number of instances is 50 percent higher again than in the 1910s. One explanation for this rapid shift may be that Brazilian readers in 1910 had become much more familiar with impressionist painting styles, imported from Europe by Brazilian artists who had come into contact with the movement while abroad. The broader acceptance of impressionism in Brazil by the 1910s also reflected changing attitudes toward the impressionists in Europe. Brazilian art writers would have become aware of this shift in opinion as it was recorded in imported and sometimes translated books and articles. As Camille Mauclair wrote, impressionism had “entered into the history” of French art and “its masters were basking in glorious old age.”11 Camille Mauclair, L’impressionnisme: Son histoire, son esthétique, ses maîtres (Paris: Librairie de l’art ancien et moderne, 1904), 201. In a May 1912 article in the Rio newspaper O Paiz, the Catalan critic Alfons Maseras (1884–1939) similarly noted: “Renoir, Monet, Sisley, Pissarro, the masters of impressionism, the revolutionaries of yesteryear, are today as classic and studied as Velasquez, Titian, and Tintoretto may be.”12 Alfons Maseras, “A pintura moderna: Do impressionismo ao Futurismo,” O Paiz (May 11, 1912): 1. While many Brazilian readers had never seen works by the impressionists named by Maseras, they could nevertheless learn from such authoritative sources that these French painters had become respected and accepted artists. According to Maseras, “Today, the canvases by the impressionists, especially the aforementioned masters, are admired in all the [major] museums of the world, and those who study them consider their technique and their processes worthy of imitation.”13 Maseras, “A pintura moderna,” 1. The impressionists had become paragons for would-be artists in Brazil and around the world.

RESPONSES TO IMPRESSIONISM IN BRAZIL

The shift in official tastes around the time of Maseras’s article must have affected the Brazilian public’s appreciation of impressionism. Table 2—which attempts to quantify the different attitudes taken toward impressionism—demonstrates these fluctuations in appreciation. Prior to 1900, only Portuguese writer Ramalho Ortigão’s (1836–1915) article, “Travel Notes: The Impressionists,” had anything positive to say about the French impressionists. Published in the Rio-based Gazeta de Notícias on November 16, 1878, this article contained the earliest use of “impressionism” by a Brazilian news outlet. Stationed in France from July 1878 to February 1879, Ortigão dispatched two or three articles each month from Paris.14Most of the dispatches in the series covered the 1878 Paris Exposition universelle in Paris and the international congresses held in conjunction with it. In his November 1878 article, he detailed how the “influence of the impressionists” had to be discussed in order to fully account for contemporary painting trends in Paris.15Ramalho Ortigão, “Notas de Viagem: Os Impressionistas,” Gazeta de Notícias (November 16, 1878): 1. By then the impressionists had already held three exhibitions (in 1874, 1876, and 1877). As this anthology demonstrates, they had been subjected to both positive and negative criticism in the French but also international press. Exaggerating what he had read in an account by Théodore Duret, Ortigão described the public as outraged by impressionism, noting that “peaceable bourgeois gentlemen in the company of their wives and daughters” had ground their teeth and called for the “return of the gallows.”16Ortigão, “Notas de Viagem,” 1. Ortigão clearly overstated the public’s condemnation—especially in the passages in which he imagined that public calling for the deaths of the artists. Yet, in tandem with this hyperbolic rhetoric meant to amuse his readers, Ortigão offered a definition of the impressionists’ style. Citing Duret, he wrote that the impressionists painted “from nature” and that they documented “exactly, precisely, strictly what they see.”17 Ortigão, “Notas de Viagem,” 1. See also Théodore Duret, Les peintres impressionnistes: Claude Monet, Sisley, C. Pissarro, Renoir, Berthe Morisot; Avec un dessin de Renoir (Paris: H. Heymann and J. Perois, 1878), 16. Presented without illustrations and without discussion of specific works, Ortigão’s article required Brazilian readers to imagine these French impressionists’ paintings, with their “colors that derive from direct contact with light rays, that derive from the reflections communicated by bringing together objects of different colors, primitive colors, composite colors, complementary colors, etc.”18 Duret, Les peintres impressionnistes, 16. Ortigão, “Notas de Viagem,” 1. Ortigão further explained that the impressionists’ gaze could perceive that “in the outdoors, certain reflections, of copses, white roads, amber dirt, give things an overall tone, which is sometimes purple, others blue, others lilac.” Emphasizing that these artists had a more heightened visual perception compared to the limited visual faculties of their public, Ortigão questioned, “Who notices that blue gets bluer when it is near orange? That purple fades to pink alongside yellow, and that red blanches at the foot of blue? The public never have such delicate optical perception.”19Duret, Les peintres impressionnistes, 16. Ortigão, “Notas de Viagem,” 1. Ortigão had clearly encountered the recently published scientific discoveries on contrasting complementary colors that the French impressionists applied in their paintings.20The impressionists were influenced by scientists Michel Eugène Chevreul (1786–1889) and Ogden Nicholas Rood (1831–1902). Chevreul’s discoveries regarding the simultaneous contrast of colors were recorded by Charles Blanc in his Grammaire des arts du dessin (Paris: J. Renouard, 1867). Published in multiple editions, it would be an essential reference for nineteenth-century artists. In addition to being a physicist, Rood was an amateur artist who published his research on the physiology of sight and on complementary colors for artists in his Student’s Text-Book of Color: Or, Modern Chromatics, with Applications to Art and Industry (New York: D. Appleton, 1879). These dispatches from Paris must have proved popular with readers, because his articles—including that on the impressionists—were subsequently compiled in the book Travel Notes: Paris and the Universal Exhibition (1878–1879).

Throughout the 1880s and 1890s, Brazilian critics limited their discussion of impressionism to Brazilian painters in local exhibitions whose aesthetic was recognizably derived from the French impressionists. Only one of the five articles published in the 1880s and 1890s that discussed impressionism did not completely condemn this art. In these infrequent commentaries, critics made sure to alert artists to the potential hazards of following this French trend. In an 1895 article on the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes Salon, an anonymous critic identified impressionist tendencies in a painting by Diana Cid (1861–1938): “In Diana Cid, we see two first-rate paintings that reveal an artist of strong temperament. The painter shows certain tendencies towards impressionism. Happily, she knows how to restrain herself and does not fall into the excesses of a school that is already losing ground, to the great benefit of art.”21 “Exposição de Bellas Artes,” Gazeta de Notícias (September 1, 1895): 2. The fine arts salon had been run by the Academia Imperial de Belas Artes in Rio de Janeiro since 1840. It included works selected by the jury. Artists who submitted to the Salon did not have to belong to the Academia. The Salon was intended to be held every year, but shortages of funds meant this was not always possible. An article in the Gazeta de Notícias in February 1884 signed by the critic “L. S.” reviewed paintings by the Italian-born Nicolau Facchinetti (1824–1900). Active and successful in Brazil, he was known for his extremely detailed landscapes. Expressing his appreciation for impressionism, L. S. commented that the degree of detail in Facchinetti’s work rebelled against the true nature of art: “There is something in landscapes that causes a greater impression on us and defines them; the rest, although visible, is superfluous.” He tempered his comments, however, adding that “between impressionism and the meticulous reproduction of each of the particles of a whole, there is a deserving compromise.”22 L. S., “Bellas Artes I,” Gazeta de Notícias (February 6, 1884): 1.

This advice—that artists should learn a lesson from impressionism without capitulating to its extremes—appeared repeatedly in newspapers and magazines in the decades to come. While admiring the luminosity and vibrancy of impressionist paintings, critics repeatedly expressed concern that draftsmanship risked being lost. Critic Félix Ferreira (1841–1898) praised painter Almeida Júnior (1850–1899) in a September 1884 article on that year’s Salon: “The Model at Rest by Mr. Almeida Júnior is the most precious jewel in this current Exhibition. . . . Everything in it is beautiful and treated with a care that reveals a conscientious artist unswayed by false realism, which, under the pretext of impressionism, hides in the hasty sketch an ignorance of the well-finished product.”23 Félix Ferreira, “Folhetim,” Brazil (September 21, 1884): 1. Earlier that same year, in June 1884, the Gazeta Litteraria reviewed an exhibition of works by Firmino Monteiro (1855–1888) staged in Rio de Janeiro a few months after the artist had returned from Europe. The anonymous reviewer wrote that Monteiro’s sojourn in Paris—during which he had “seen exhibitions, observed closely the works of the past masters and the luminaries of today”—had led him to admire artists “who paint with their fingers and draw by intuition, using the brush like a knife.” The French impressionists did not paint with their fingers, of course, but such invective was typical of critics seeking to call attention to supposedly unrefined modes of painting. The French artists’ liberty and largesse, the reviewer continued, had drawn Monteiro’s attention and “attracted him to impressionism, which . . . can equally well be a pantheon or a whipping post.”24 “Movimento Artístico,” Gazeta Litteraria (June 13, 1884): 294. Following in the brushstrokes of the French impressionists could thereby elevate or diminish an artist’s standing. The ambiguous position of impressionism—pantheon or whipping post—led the critic to demure that “we [critics] would not condemn it without running the risk of being branded as ignorant.”25 “Movimento Artístico,” 294. He proceeded to mistakenly assert that the great masters of French impressionism still depended on drawing. Yet in France, critics sympathetic to impressionism such as Jules Laforgue celebrated these artists for abandoning the “illusion of drawing” and obtaining forms “not through outline drawing, but solely through the vibrations and contrasts of color.”26 Jules Laforgue, “L’impressionnisme,” in Mélanges posthumes (Paris: Société du Mercure de France, 1903), 134.

Monteiro was a black artist from a poor family in Rio de Janeiro who died prematurely at age thirty-three. None of his paintings would be identified today as impressionist. The Gazeta Litteraria reviewer may have applied this label in reference to Monteiro’s use of light colors and impasto in a painting such as Niterói Landscape (fig. 1). However, in 1884 that reviewer would not have seen any French impressionist paintings against which to compare Monteiro’s. Until the 1920s, Brazilian readers and audiences had limited access to French impressionism. While they had encountered a few paintings with impressionist influence, they had mostly only read or heard of impressionist works and may have had contact with the odd black-and-white reproduction. Prior to the 1910s, Brazilian collectors acquired reproductions of artworks from foreign printmakers (among them the French Goupil et cie and Imprimerie Lemercier, the Belgian Segers and Bouwens, the British Virtue and Company, and the U.S. Johnson, Wilson and Company); however, no reproductions of impressionist paintings were included in their collections. No public collections in Brazil contained French impressionist paintings until the 1920s.27See Frederico Silva, ed., A Coleção Artur Azevedo (São Luís: Geia, 2014), 46. Instead, their collections comprised mostly copies of reputed artworks from the Italian Renaissance, for example. In the case of contemporary French artists, they preferred academic painters such as Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904) or William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825–1905). In tandem with this printed material, fashionable French illustrated magazines including La revue illustrée and La plume circulated in Rio de Janeiro. While no in-depth study has traced the influence of these materials on the development of artists and opinions about art in Brazil, they were likely instrumental in spreading new European trends.

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Description: Niterói Landscape by Monteiro, Firmino

Fig. 1. Firmino Monteiro, Niterói Landscape, c. 1884. Oil on canvas, 41 × 64.5 cm. Museu Nacional de Belas Artes, Rio de Janeiro.

Only after the century mark did positive attitudes toward French impressionism begin to widely circulate in Brazil (see table 2). In 1901 a favorable review of Antônio Parreiras’s (1860–1937) studio exhibition appeared in the Gazeta de Notícias. His The Prayer was praised for the way “the artist draws noticeably away from his former practice, producing broad, simple painting, with good impressionistic tendencies. . . . The colors are light, the horizon disappears, and the light, delicate colors give the landscape a magnificent effect of truth and grace.”28R. de C., “Cousas d’arte,” Gazeta de Notícias (April 20, 1901): 1. This large canvas, with its lone peasant standing respectfully, hat in hand, before a wooden cross, would not be classified today as impressionist. The figure, cross, and log in the foreground have all been painstakingly drawn. This attention to detail contrasts with the background, which has been painted as though through a mist that lends an overall bleached appearance to the composition. Presumably, the light tonality prompted the discussion of this work’s “impressionistic tendencies.” Such tonality was widespread in the late nineteenth century.29On the influence of the impressionists on French painting in the late nineteenth century, see André Michel, “L’exposition Centennale,” in Exposition Universelle de 1900. Les Beaux-Arts et les Arts Décoratifs (Paris: Gazette des beaux-arts, 1900), 307–8. See also Félice Faizand de Maupeou and Claire Maingon, eds., Face à l’Impressionnisme. Réception d’un mouvement, 1900–1950 (Rouen: Presses Universitaires de Rouen et du Havre, 2019). French critic Jules Rais (1872–1943) described how impressionism had invaded the fine arts school, leaving a generation of painters who had learned from impressionism “nothing more than was required to represent . . . diffuse light.”30 Jules Rais, “La peinture française pendant le cours du siècle,” Encyclopédie du siècle: L’exposition de Paris (1900) (Paris: Montgredien, 1900), 162. Reviewing the 1896 Paris Salons, Émile Zola (1840–1902) similarly and ironically remarked: “What strikes me first is the dominance of light tones. They are all Manets, all Monets, all Pissarros! . . . What multiplies my astonishment is the fervor of these converts, the excess of light tones, which transforms some of the works into linen faded by repeated washing.”31 Émile Zola, “Peinture,” Le Figaro, May 2, 1896, 1. Though impressionist tendencies were associated with an overall lightening of the palette, not all artists who did so were necessarily impressionists. Nonetheless, in the early positive responses to impressionism in Brazil, this association of the movement with the use of light and luminous colors is clearly evident.

By the second decade of the twentieth century, impressionism generated more articles and favorable reviews (see table 2). The adoption of impressionist techniques by Henrique Cavalleiro (1892–1975) led him to receive widespread adulation in the 1910s, when he was still a student at the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes in Rio de Janeiro. Poet Carlos Maul (1887–1974) wrote that he had encountered “a painting [by Cavalleiro] where the exuberant vigor of the greens of our forests sings the supreme rhapsody of power and greatness.” To Maul, Cavalleiro was an “impressionist par excellence, who follows, like true biblical precepts, these words by [Enrique] Gómez Carrillo: ‘Impressionism is about freedom, sincerity, caprice, freshness . . .’ There are in his canvases veritable contrasts of light. Light springs forth from the smallest of things and even hurts with its intensity.”32 Enrique Gómez Carrillo (1873–1927) was a Guatemalan writer and critic. The quote of Gómez Carrillo comes from “El impressionismo,” in Desfile de Visiones (Valencia: Prometeo, 1906), 14, quoted in Carlos Maul, “A moderna pintura brasileira,” Gazeta de Notícias (March 23, 1912): 4. While Brazilians had largely come to accept this form of painting, some critics remained reluctant to do so.

The reasons for their reluctance had shifted, however. Prior to 1910, the novelty of impressionism had inspired mistrust: reviewers cautioned against the excesses of the new painting style and the dangers of neglecting drawing.33 See “Exposição de Bellas Artes,” Gazeta de Notícias (September 1, 1895): 2; Ferreira, “Folhetim,” 1; “Movimento Artístico,” Gazeta Litteraria (June 13, 1884): 294. By the 1910s, however, while this rhetoric continued, Brazilian critics had begun to separate early French impressionists and their twentieth-century Brazilian or European imitators; the latter were condemned as insincere and inauthentic—as merely imitating the originality of the French.34 J. M., “Pintura,” O Paiz (August 3, 1918): 5. Such latter-day imitators were lambasted for what was termed “academic impressionism.” In a November 1919 edition of O Paiz, critic T. M. concluded that artists had started to incorporate techniques associated with impressionism without capturing any of the “spiritual meaning” of the original art.35 T. M., “Artes e Artistas: Belas Artes,” O Paiz (November 25, 1919): 5. By “spiritual meaning,” T. M. insisted on the authenticity of the French impressionists, whose creations derived from personal, pioneering experiments before nature. Their imitators had lost any claims on authenticity, as they adopted techniques seen in impressionist paintings without any direct experience of their own in nature.

Only in the 1920s, when examples of modernist painting started to appear in exhibitions in Brazil, would the status of impressionism there be solidified.36 Impressionist works were first included in public art collections in Brazil in the 1920s. As but one example, the widow of the baron of São Joaquim donated the couple’s collection to the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes in Rio de Janeiro in 1922. Artists such as Marques Júnior (1887–1960), Pedro Bruno (1888–1949), and Georgina de Albuquerque (1885–1962) declared themselves impressionists.37 “O impressionismo e os nossos pintores—a chegada de Marques Junior,” A Noite (January 16, 1922): 6; Angyone Costa, “Na intimidade de nossos artistas,” O Jornal (August 29, 1926): 17; and Angyone Costa, “Na intimidade de nossos artistas,” O Jornal (July 18, 1926): 4. As the public reception of impressionism became more positive, detractors in the newspaper press shifted from the fear of novelty to impatience with obsolescence. Critical opinions started to embrace the modernist painting of an artist such as Tarsila do Amaral (1886–1973) against the “lackluster painting of the remnants of impressionism.” Those who still embraced impressionism began to be cast as an arrière-garde.38“Exposição Tarsila do Amaral,” Movimento Brasileiro (August 1929): 18. Under the domesticating influence of the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes instructors, Brazilian impressionist painting had come to be seen as “fake imitations of [French] impressionism.”39 Celso Kelly, “Notas de Arte,” A Manhã (May 25, 1928): 2. See also Celso Kelly, “O ano artístico,” A Manhã (December 29, 1926): 11. Though unnamed, the imitators in question were likely Eliseu Visconti (1866–1944) and Georgina de Albuquerque.

THE BRAZILIAN IMPRESSIONISTS

For this essay, three sources were used to collate a list of Brazilian artists referred to as “impressionists”: newspaper articles published between 1878 and 1929; the 1974 Reflections of Impressionism exhibition at the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes; and the 2017 Impressionism and Brazil exhibition at the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo. Table 3 lists twenty-four Brazilian painters whose work was described as “impressionist” by at least one of these three sources. Only five artists are quoted by all three sources: Parreiras, Visconti, Mário Navarro da Costa, and the husband and wife Lucílio (1877–1939) and Georgina de Albuquerque. As these five painters continue to be received as impressionists today, they represent a useful sample for an initial inquiry into how Brazilian artists understood impressionism, and how they incorporated impressionist influences into their own artistic practices. A key source for what Brazilian artists of the time (and this group in particular) thought is Angyone Costa’s (1888–1954) The Disquiet of the Bees—a compilation of thirty-four newspaper interviews conducted in 1926 and published as a book the following year.40Navarro da Costa was out of the country at the time and could not be interviewed; the other four artists were interviewed by Angyone Costa for the book. On Antonio Parreiras, see Angyone Costa, “Na intimidade de nossos artistas,” O Jornal (June 27, 1926): 13. On Eliseu Visconti, see Angyone Costa, “Na intimidade de nossos artistas,” O Jornal (August 29, 1926): 17. On Navarro da Costa, see F. M. Mascarenhas, “Opiniões de um colleccionador de pinturas,” O Imparcial (September 19, 1920): 2; and on Lucílio and Georgina de Albuquerque, see Angyone Costa, “Na intimidade de nossos artistas,” O Jornal (July 18, 1926): 4. While Visconti would be labeled the “first Brazilian impressionist” by critics and historians in the 1930s (this sobriquet would be resurrected in the 1950s), he refused to apply this label to his own work.41Mário Pedrosa (1900–1981), José Simeão Leal (1908–1996), and Flávio de Aquino (1919–1987) wrote important essays about Visconti, reinforcing his role in introducing impressionism to Brazil. Leal and Aquino both wrote texts included in the catalogue for the retrospective of Visconti’s work at the Second Biennale of Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, in 1954. Interviewing Visconti for The Disquiet of the Bees, Costa remarked on “two canvases in different techniques” in the corner of the artist’s studio, which then prompted a discussion of schools and affiliations. “I’m a ‘presentist.’ Art cannot stop,” Visconti replied, adding: “How can one remain a ‘pastist’? In view of the impossibility of a ‘futurist’ orientation, let us at least be ‘presentists.’” Working to set his art apart from Brazil’s modernists, who, in the 1920s, were referred to as “futurists,” Visconti simultaneously distinguished his work from painters linked to the academic past.42Although they did not agree with this label, Brazilian modernists were called “futurists” by their contemporaries. “Futurism” had become a popular synonym for “modernity” in Brazil in the 1920s. See Oswald de Andrade, “Futuristas de São Paulo,” Jornal do Commercio, São Paulo (February 19, 1922): 4. As a self-proclaimed “presentist,” he blandly summarized his work as the output of a “painter who paints the present, in the manner of his time.”43Angyone Costa, A Inquietação das abelhas (O que pensam e o que dizem os nossos pintores, esculptores, architectos e gravadores, sobre as artes plasticas no Brasil) (Rio de Janeiro: Pimenta de Mello, 1927), 81. Visconti made no reference to impressionism in the interview. This refusal to claim allegiance to any school would be repeated by Visconti’s student, Manoel Santiago (1897–1987), who, in a letter to the older artist, wrote: “I paint without any preconceived ideas of impressionism or any other school, nor of things that are known.”44Manoel Santiago to Eliseu Visconti, August 26, 1930, Archive of Museu Nacional de Belas Artes, Rio de Janeiro. In underlining the word “known” in his letter, Santiago stressed that his work did not apply abstract theory. Both Visconti and his student felt that any affiliation would hamper their spontaneity, their individuality, and consequently their authenticity.

Visconti nonetheless had encountered impressionism in France, as shown by his painting Jardin du Luxembourg (fig. 2). Visconti would have visited the Musée du Luxembourg after the Caillebotte Bequest and its dozens of French impressionist paintings and pastels had been installed there. Critics insistently referred to Visconti’s work as “impressionist.” In such cases, he did not deny the epithet but adapted it. In a March 1936 letter to Visconti, art critic and historian Fléxa Ribeiro (1884–1971) explained that he was preparing an article on impressionism in Brazil to be published the following month in the magazine Illustração Brasileira. Ribeiro requested that Visconti choose “a work . . . in this technique” for color reproduction.45Fléxa Ribeiro to Eliseu Visconti, March 5, 1936, Archive of Museu Nacional de Belas Artes, Rio de Janeiro. When the article, “The Expressive Revolution in Brazilian Art,” appeared in April 1936, it lauded Visconti’s art, which “since 1900 [had] introduced to us impressionist manifestations.”46 Fléxa Ribeiro, “A Revolução plástica na arte brasileira,” Revista Illustração Brasileir (April 1936): 18. Visconti’s The Boys from the Hill was illustrated in the article and was accompanied by a citation noting that the painting came from the artist’s own collection (fig. 3). Although he may not have considered himself an impressionist painter, Visconti recognized that some of his works were executed in an impressionist style. With its light tones and highly visible brushwork, this painting and its depiction of a group of children happily going up a hill recalls the French impressionists’ paintings of moments of leisure. Still, The Boys from the Hill is not a conventional composition simply overlaid with broken brushwork. The leaves of the banana tree mark their presence by taking up over half of the canvas and providing a real sense of the lushness of the tropical vegetation; at the same time, Visconti’s bleached and blue hues successfully convey the strength of the sun.

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Description: Jardin du Luxembourg by Visconti, Eliseu

Fig. 2. Eliseu Visconti, Jardin du Luxembourg, c. 1905. Oil on canvas, 33 × 41.5 cm. Private collection [P454].

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Description: The Boys from the Hill by Visconti, Eliseu

Fig. 3. Eliseu Visconti, The Boys from the Hill, c. 1928. Oil on canvas, 57 × 81 cm. Private collection, Rio de Janeiro [P560].

While artists from Visconti’s generation tended to embrace eclecticism, the next generation, to which Georgina de Albuquerque belonged, was somewhat different.47 For insights and information regarding Georgina de Albuquerque, I would like to thank Thais Canfild, who completed her master’s degree in visual arts under my supervision at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. To Costa’s question—“And the art you do, Miss Georgina, what kind is it?”—she confidently replied, “Impressionist, which has a modern feel, something new in painting. It’s completely different from the pre-established canons. It’s all about having more movement, more sunshine, less calculated and measured.”48 Costa, A Inquietação das abelhas, 88. Unlike Visconti, de Albuquerque identified with impressionism and remained faithful to it for most of her career. De Albuquerque’s Corner of Rio, while produced around the same time as Visconti’s Boys from the Hill, clearly reflects the influence of French impressionism in its patches of color, loose brushstrokes, and depiction of a mundane scene (fig. 4). Here, two girls sit and talk over a cool drink at a seaside table. The background is marked by the relief of the mountains of Rio de Janeiro: Sugar Loaf on the left and Corcovado on the right, not yet with its statue of Christ the Redeemer (installed in 1931). The scene was painted in Niterói, not far from where Georgina and her husband, Lucílio, had their home and studio. Still, the composition reveals a more rational and geometric organization, with the girls placed in the foreground, the boy looking at them placed in the middle ground, and the landscape pushed to the background. Despite this, in her interview with Costa, de Albuquerque stressed the casual or unplanned nature of her creative approach, describing how she had been inspired by what she saw on her walks: “I walk along the beach, enchanted by the landscape; I come across a child, I stop, I am allured, and I lose interest in the surrounding landscape. My sensibility is drawn to the grace, the movement, the vibrancy of childhood.”49 Costa, A Inquietação das abelhas, 88. Georgina recorded the daily life around her in Niterói, just as Visconti painted a scene that he must have seen repeatedly around his home near Tabajaras hill. Both artists drew on observations of their surroundings while adapting the technical concerns characteristic of impressionism.

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Description: Corner of Rio by Albuquerque, Georgina de

Fig. 4. Georgina de Albuquerque, Corner of Rio, c. 1926. Oil on canvas, 76.5 × 105 cm. Museu Antônio Parreiras, Niterói.

Neither Parreiras nor Lucílio de Albuquerque identified as impressionists. In his interviews, Costa did not ask about their adoption of any style or affiliation with any school, and these artists did not mention impressionism during the interviews or on any other occasion. Like Visconti and Georgina de Albuquerque, however, they both adeptly used light colors and broken brushwork in their canvases. Parreiras’s Vieux parc, Paris, and de Albuquerque’s Section of Rio de Janeiro record both artists’ contact with French impressionism (figs. 5, 6). In Vieux parc, Parreiras fills the whole canvas surface with predominantly orange brushstrokes, interspersed with complementary blues and greens. This process reveals an impressionist influence; however, the atmosphere seems indebted to Romanticism. The expressive lines of the branches recall the landscapes of Camille Corot, whom Parreiras admired.50 Proof of this admiration is a postcard of the monument to Corot in Ville-d’Avray Parreiras sent from Paris to his son on May 20, 1906. The postcard is now in the archive of the Museu Antônio Parreiras. In his autobiography, History of a Painter Told by Himself (História de um pintor contada por ele mesmo), Parreiras portrayed himself as a romantic painter overtaken by his emotion before nature.51 Antônio Parreiras, História de um pintor contada por ele mesmo (Niterói: Dias e Vasconcelos, 1926). He thus combined impressionist practices and interests—painting en plein air, using complementary colors, and working in highly visible brushstrokes—with the emotive expression of his temperament. Lucílio de Albuquerque’s Section of Rio de Janeiro likewise demonstrates his own indebtedness to impressionism in its light, vibrant hues, its colored shading, and its rapid brushstrokes. Still, the landscape appears almost spiritual or at least contemplative, with the bent, distorted lines of the trees and the path that leads the viewer’s gaze into the distance.

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Description: Old Park, Paris by Parreiras, Antonio

Fig. 5. Antonio Parreiras, Vieux parc, Paris, 1914. Oil on canvas, 88.5 × 116.5 cm. Museu Nacional de Belas Artes, Rio de Janeiro [658].

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Description: Section of Rio de Janeiro by Albuquerque, Lucilío de

Fig. 6. Lucílio de Albuquerque, Section of Rio de Janeiro, 1927. Oil on canvas, 133 × 160.5 cm. Museu do Ingá, Niterói [004229].

If the works by Georgina de Albuquerque and Visconti adapted impressionism to the Brazilian landscape and lifestyle, those by Parreiras and Lucílio de Albuquerque reflected still more influences. The latter appropriated the language of artists who had marked them most profoundly and who chimed with their temperaments, without restricting themselves to any particular movement. Thus, impressionism in Brazil tended to be melded with the Romanticism that preceded it or the expressionism that followed it. This is apparent, for example, in a January 1921 O Paiz article by critic J. C. in praise of Navarro da Costa, whose works were then on display in the Colucci gallery in Rio de Janeiro. The critic expressed enthusiasm for “the leap the artist has just taken, passing rapidly from the classicism in whose realm his first brushstrokes moved to the boldness of direct impression, to the sudden, luminous blow, in a perfect composition, as if his painting had all been made from a miraculous flow of fluid paints, gold, light, air, and outline, although it has nothing of outline.”52 J. C., “Artes e Artistas—Bellas Artes—Navarro da Costa,” O Paiz (January 15, 1921): 6. After this description, J. C. asked: “Can one say that Navarro da Costa has adopted impressionism as a school? But, if impressionism is precisely the abandonment of schools . . . Navarro, actually, reaching the peak of his outstanding talent, can no longer adhere to schools. He has started to paint with the whole exuberance of his temperament, and only now can one say that this is the work of Navarro’s hand.”53 J. C., “Artes e Artistas,” 6. It is curious how J. C. mentions da Costa’s impressionist tendencies while simultaneously denying any such allegiance. Yet this fickle connection to impressionism may be seen in a work such as Port of Leixões (fig. 7). Likely painted in Portugal in the 1910s, it exemplifies the vibrant colors and broad brushstrokes characteristic of his seascape paintings appreciated by Brazilian audiences at the time. Such vivacity and brilliance were consistently linked to da Costa’s status as an impressionist: the writer Júlio Dantas (1876–1962) insisted that “few times has the word impressionism . . . been better suited to the process of a painter,” as in the case of this “marvelous interpreter of the sea, capable of capturing . . . effects of light and color which vary at each passing moment.”54Júlio Dantas, “Um pintor brasileiro,” Correio da manhã (April 7, 1918): 2. To Dantas, da Costa perfected impressionism. Yet closer inspection shows that his paintings were defined by sharp and accurate draftsmanship, even as his compositions are constructed from patches of color. Due to this vivid coloring, the artist and art historian Quirino Campofiorito (1902–1993) connected him not only to impressionism but also fauvism, while observing the influence of cubism in his works.55 Quirino Campofiorito, A Visão de Navarro da Costa, 1883–1931 (Rio de Janeiro: Museu Nacional de Belas Artes, 1983), 1.

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Description: Port of Leixões by Costa, Navarro da

Fig. 7. Navarro da Costa, Port of Leixões, 1914–31. Oil on canvas, 81 × 100 cm. Pinacoteca de São Paulo, São Paulo.

As the changing terms of public discourse and the varied interpretations of these five painters make clear, the definition and parameters of Brazilian impressionism were quite fluid. As the tables of data further demonstrate, the labeling of impressionist painters was also extremely flexible. That changing configuration may be attributed to the fact that the Brazilian impressionists never created a formal group of their own; each took part in official exhibitions, like the rest of their peers. Furthermore, the painters were eclectic in their techniques, at times adhering closely to impressionism and at times distancing themselves from it.

To conclude by returning to the question of the authenticity of the impressionist movement in Brazil, it is useful to reflect on the fundamental divide between theoretical propositions and artistic practice. If the work of these Brazilian artists is measured against the standard story of impressionism, then they cannot be classified as “impressionists.” If, however, impressionism may be redefined as a set of variegated practices that diverged from any strict theoretical definition (or even the lack of any single valid theoretical expression) or, similarly, as a set of linked ideas circulating under general heading of “impressionism,” then it follows that there was certainly an impressionist movement in Brazilian painting. After all, the influence of French impressionism gave rise to individual impressionist paintings; to painters who self-identified as impressionists; to painters who, even though they did not refer to themselves as such, were deemed impressionists by art critics; and to major museum exhibitions offering perspectives on Brazilian impressionism to the viewing public. While it remains necessary to explore the finer points of these definitions and discourses, one conclusion is certain: in the history of Brazilian art there are paintings that could never have been produced without the influence of the French impressionists, whose work crossed so many borders and made its mark on artists around the world.

Table 1: Number of articles that mention impressionism each decade

Decade	1870s	1880s	1890s	1900s	1910s	1920s	Total
Number of articles	1	4	1	6	14	21	47

Table 2: The different attitudes taken toward impressionism in the press

Decade Appraisal	1870s	1880s	1890s	1900s	1910s	1920s	Total
Positive	1			2	9	14	26
Balanced		1		2	1	3	7
Negative		3	1	2	4	4	14

Table 3: Brazilian impressionist painters mentioned in three sources

	Artist	Newspapers, 1878–1929	MNBA exhibition (1974)	MAM-SP exhibition (2017)
1	Antônio Garcia Bento (Campos dos Goytacazes, 1897–Rio de Janeiro, 1929)		yes	y es
2	Antônio Parreiras (Niterói, 1860–1937)	yes	yes	yes
3	Armando Vianna (Rio de Janeiro, 1897–1991)		yes
4	Arthur Timótheo da Costa (Rio de Janeiro, 1882–1922)			yes
5	Belmiro de Almeida (Serro, 1858–Paris, 1935)		yes
6	Carlos Oswald (Florence, 1882–Petrópolis, 1971)		yes
7	Edgard Parreiras (Niterói, 1885–1960)		yes
8	Eliseu Visconti (Salerno, 1866–Rio de Janeiro, 1944)	yes	yes	yes
9	Gastão Formenti (Guaratinguetá, 1894–Rio de Janeiro, 1974)		yes
10	Georgina de Albuquerque (Taubaté, 1885–Rio de Janeiro, 1962)	yes	yes	yes
11	Georg Grimm (Kempten, 1846–Palermo 1887)	yes		yes
12	Giovanni Battista Castagneto (Genova, 1851–Rio de Janeiro, 1900)		yes	yes
13	Gustavo Dall’ara (Rovigo, 1865–Rio de Janeiro, 1923)		yes
14	Guttmann Bicho (Petrópolis, 1888–Rio de Janeiro, 1955)		yes
15	Henrique Cavalleiro (Rio de Janeiro, 1892–1975)	yes	yes
16	João Timótheo da Costa (Rio de Janeiro, 1879–1932)		yes	yes
17	Lucílio de Albuquerque (Barras, 1877–Rio de Janeiro, 1939)	yes	yes	yes
18	Manoel Santiago (Manaus, 1897–Rio de Janeiro, 1987)	yes
19	Marques Júnior (Rio de Janeiro, 1887–1960)	yes	yes
20	Mário Navarro da Costa (Rio de Janeiro, 1883–Florence, 1931)	yes	yes	yes
21	Paula Fonseca (Rio de Janeiro, 1889–1961)		yes
22	Pedro Bruno (Rio de Janeiro, 1888–1949)	yes
23	Presciliano da Silva (Salvador, 1884–1965)		yes
24	Príncipe Gagarin (St. Petersburg, 1885–Rio de Janeiro, 1980)	yes

1 Maria Elisa Carrazzoni, ed., Reflexos do impressionismo: Exposição comemorativa do 1° centenário do impressionismo (1874–1974) (Rio de Janeiro: Museu Nacional de Belas Artes, 1974). This catalogue was published in conjunction with the eponymous exhibition at the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes in Rio de Janeiro (October 10–November 3, 1974). I wish to thank Rayane Ribeiro, student from the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, and also thank Beatriz Rosa Cavalcanti, Camila Lopes, Carolina Alves, Claudia Cardoso, Cristiano Nogueira, Isabela Carneiro, Julio Reis, Natália Nicolich, and Tássia Rocha, students from the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, for their help with this research. »

2 Maria Elisa Carrazzoni, “Filosofia de ação do museu,” in Carrazzoni, Reflexos do impressionismo, 1. Here and elsewhere, unless indicated otherwise, the translations are by Rebecca Atkinson, whom I wish to thank for her professional help. »

3 Marinho de Azevedo, “Para os contemporâneos,” in Carrazzoni, Reflexos do impressionismo, 3. »

4 See João Victor Rossetti Brancato, “Crítica de arte e modernidade no Rio de Janeiro: Intertextualidade na imprensa carioca dos anos 20 a partir de Adalberto Mattos (1888–1966)” (MA thesis, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, 2018). »

5 Felipe Chaimovich, ed., O Impressionismo e o Brasil (São Paulo: Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, 2017). This was published in conjunction with the eponymous exhibition at the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (May 16–August 27, 2017). »

6 Jorge Coli, “Brasil e o impressionismo,” Folha de S. Paulo, June 25, 2017, 61. »

7 From 1826 to 1889, the official art education establishment in Brazil was called the Academia Imperial de Belas Artes; in November 1890, a year after the proclamation of the Republic of Brazil, the academy was restructured and changed its name to the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes. »

8 See James Elkins, ed., Is Art History Global? (New York: Routledge, 2007); see also Kenneth McConkey, British Impressionism (Oxford: Phaidon, 1989). »

9 The database can be accessed at Biblioteca Nacional Digital Brazil, https://bit.ly/3eIGW3G. On the history of the press in Brazil, see Nelson Werneck Sodré, História da imprensa no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Mauad, 1999); and Ana Luiza Martins and Tania Regina De Luca, eds., História da Imprensa no Brasil (São Paulo: Contexto, 2008). »

10 The Brazilian newspapers and magazines containing articles that mention impressionism include: A Cigarra, A Gazeta, Almanaque Garnier, A Manhã, A Noite, A Notícia, Architectura no Brasil, A Tribuna, A União, Brazil, Correio da Manhã, Correio Paulistano, Fon-Fon, Gazeta Litteraria, Gazeta de Notícias, Jornal do Brasil, Kosmos, Movimento Brasileiro, O Imparcial, O Jornal, O Malho, O Paiz, and Revista Americana. »

11 Camille Mauclair, L’impressionnisme: Son histoire, son esthétique, ses maîtres (Paris: Librairie de l’art ancien et moderne, 1904), 201. »

12 Alfons Maseras, “A pintura moderna: Do impressionismo ao Futurismo,” O Paiz (May 11, 1912): 1. »

13 Maseras, “A pintura moderna,” 1. »

14 Most of the dispatches in the series covered the 1878 Paris Exposition universelle in Paris and the international congresses held in conjunction with it. »

15 Ramalho Ortigão, “Notas de Viagem: Os Impressionistas,” Gazeta de Notícias (November 16, 1878): 1. »

16 Ortigão, “Notas de Viagem,” 1. »

17 Ortigão, “Notas de Viagem,” 1. See also Théodore Duret, Les peintres impressionnistes: Claude Monet, Sisley, C. Pissarro, Renoir, Berthe Morisot; Avec un dessin de Renoir (Paris: H. Heymann and J. Perois, 1878), 16. »

18 Duret, Les peintres impressionnistes, 16. Ortigão, “Notas de Viagem,” 1. »

19 Duret, Les peintres impressionnistes, 16. Ortigão, “Notas de Viagem,” 1. »

20 The impressionists were influenced by scientists Michel Eugène Chevreul (1786–1889) and Ogden Nicholas Rood (1831–1902). Chevreul’s discoveries regarding the simultaneous contrast of colors were recorded by Charles Blanc in his Grammaire des arts du dessin (Paris: J. Renouard, 1867). Published in multiple editions, it would be an essential reference for nineteenth-century artists. In addition to being a physicist, Rood was an amateur artist who published his research on the physiology of sight and on complementary colors for artists in his Student’s Text-Book of Color: Or, Modern Chromatics, with Applications to Art and Industry (New York: D. Appleton, 1879). »

21 “Exposição de Bellas Artes,” Gazeta de Notícias (September 1, 1895): 2. The fine arts salon had been run by the Academia Imperial de Belas Artes in Rio de Janeiro since 1840. It included works selected by the jury. Artists who submitted to the Salon did not have to belong to the Academia. The Salon was intended to be held every year, but shortages of funds meant this was not always possible. »

22 L. S., “Bellas Artes I,” Gazeta de Notícias (February 6, 1884): 1. »

23 Félix Ferreira, “Folhetim,” Brazil (September 21, 1884): 1. »

24 “Movimento Artístico,” Gazeta Litteraria (June 13, 1884): 294. »

25 “Movimento Artístico,” 294. »

26 Jules Laforgue, “L’impressionnisme,” in Mélanges posthumes (Paris: Société du Mercure de France, 1903), 134. »

27 See Frederico Silva, ed., A Coleção Artur Azevedo (São Luís: Geia, 2014), 46. »

28 R. de C., “Cousas d’arte,” Gazeta de Notícias (April 20, 1901): 1. »

29 On the influence of the impressionists on French painting in the late nineteenth century, see André Michel, “L’exposition Centennale,” in Exposition Universelle de 1900. Les Beaux-Arts et les Arts Décoratifs (Paris: Gazette des beaux-arts, 1900), 307–8. See also Félice Faizand de Maupeou and Claire Maingon, eds., Face à l’Impressionnisme. Réception d’un mouvement, 1900–1950 (Rouen: Presses Universitaires de Rouen et du Havre, 2019). »

30 Jules Rais, “La peinture française pendant le cours du siècle,” Encyclopédie du siècle: L’exposition de Paris (1900) (Paris: Montgredien, 1900), 162. »

31 Émile Zola, “Peinture,” Le Figaro, May 2, 1896, 1. »

32 Enrique Gómez Carrillo (1873–1927) was a Guatemalan writer and critic. The quote of Gómez Carrillo comes from “El impressionismo,” in Desfile de Visiones (Valencia: Prometeo, 1906), 14, quoted in Carlos Maul, “A moderna pintura brasileira,” Gazeta de Notícias (March 23, 1912): 4. »

33 See “Exposição de Bellas Artes,” Gazeta de Notícias (September 1, 1895): 2; Ferreira, “Folhetim,” 1; “Movimento Artístico,” Gazeta Litteraria (June 13, 1884): 294. »

34 J. M., “Pintura,” O Paiz (August 3, 1918): 5. »

35 T. M., “Artes e Artistas: Belas Artes,” O Paiz (November 25, 1919): 5. »

36 Impressionist works were first included in public art collections in Brazil in the 1920s. As but one example, the widow of the baron of São Joaquim donated the couple’s collection to the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes in Rio de Janeiro in 1922. »

37 “O impressionismo e os nossos pintores—a chegada de Marques Junior,” A Noite (January 16, 1922): 6; Angyone Costa, “Na intimidade de nossos artistas,” O Jornal (August 29, 1926): 17; and Angyone Costa, “Na intimidade de nossos artistas,” O Jornal (July 18, 1926): 4. »

38 “Exposição Tarsila do Amaral,” Movimento Brasileiro (August 1929): 18. »

39 Celso Kelly, “Notas de Arte,” A Manhã (May 25, 1928): 2. See also Celso Kelly, “O ano artístico,” A Manhã (December 29, 1926): 11. »

40 Navarro da Costa was out of the country at the time and could not be interviewed; the other four artists were interviewed by Angyone Costa for the book. On Antonio Parreiras, see Angyone Costa, “Na intimidade de nossos artistas,” O Jornal (June 27, 1926): 13. On Eliseu Visconti, see Angyone Costa, “Na intimidade de nossos artistas,” O Jornal (August 29, 1926): 17. On Navarro da Costa, see F. M. Mascarenhas, “Opiniões de um colleccionador de pinturas,” O Imparcial (September 19, 1920): 2; and on Lucílio and Georgina de Albuquerque, see Angyone Costa, “Na intimidade de nossos artistas,” O Jornal (July 18, 1926): 4. »

41 Mário Pedrosa (1900–1981), José Simeão Leal (1908–1996), and Flávio de Aquino (1919–1987) wrote important essays about Visconti, reinforcing his role in introducing impressionism to Brazil. Leal and Aquino both wrote texts included in the catalogue for the retrospective of Visconti’s work at the Second Biennale of Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, in 1954. »

42 Although they did not agree with this label, Brazilian modernists were called “futurists” by their contemporaries. “Futurism” had become a popular synonym for “modernity” in Brazil in the 1920s. See Oswald de Andrade, “Futuristas de São Paulo,” Jornal do Commercio, São Paulo (February 19, 1922): 4. »

43 Angyone Costa, A Inquietação das abelhas (O que pensam e o que dizem os nossos pintores, esculptores, architectos e gravadores, sobre as artes plasticas no Brasil) (Rio de Janeiro: Pimenta de Mello, 1927), 81. »

44 Manoel Santiago to Eliseu Visconti, August 26, 1930, Archive of Museu Nacional de Belas Artes, Rio de Janeiro. »

45 Fléxa Ribeiro to Eliseu Visconti, March 5, 1936, Archive of Museu Nacional de Belas Artes, Rio de Janeiro. »

46 Fléxa Ribeiro, “A Revolução plástica na arte brasileira,” Revista Illustração Brasileir (April 1936): 18. »

47 For insights and information regarding Georgina de Albuquerque, I would like to thank Thais Canfild, who completed her master’s degree in visual arts under my supervision at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. »

48 Costa, A Inquietação das abelhas, 88. »

49 Costa, A Inquietação das abelhas, 88. »

50 Proof of this admiration is a postcard of the monument to Corot in Ville-d’Avray Parreiras sent from Paris to his son on May 20, 1906. The postcard is now in the archive of the Museu Antônio Parreiras. »

51 Antônio Parreiras, História de um pintor contada por ele mesmo (Niterói: Dias e Vasconcelos, 1926). »

52 J. C., “Artes e Artistas—Bellas Artes—Navarro da Costa,” O Paiz (January 15, 1921): 6. »

53 J. C., “Artes e Artistas,” 6. »

54 Júlio Dantas, “Um pintor brasileiro,” Correio da manhã (April 7, 1918): 2. »

55 Quirino Campofiorito, A Visão de Navarro da Costa, 1883–1931 (Rio de Janeiro: Museu Nacional de Belas Artes, 1983), 1. »

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