As a child, he was nicknamed “Little Leonardo do Sertão” by his family and residents and we can say that Pedro Américo traced his destiny in this search. Novelist, poet, scientist, art theorist, essayist, philosopher, politician, teacher and painter. Prodigy in the city of Areias, in Paraíba where, as a child, he met the naturalist Louis Jacques Brunet and accompanied him on the expedition to draw.
Painting “Independence or death” (1888), by Pedro Américo | Paulista Museum Collection | Public domain
At the age of 13, he enrolled at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in Rio de Janeiro, now nicknamed “Papa-Medalhas”. His artistic and intellectual journey is vast, dynamic, profound and in the turbulent economic situation, he even sells medals to support himself, in an attempt to make the most of his travels and everything that the place allowed for his improvement. In Paris, at the academy, he became a disciple of Ingres, studied at the Ganot Institute of Physics, Archeology with Beulé, received a Bachelor of Social Sciences from the Sorbonne and a PhD from the University of Brussels, researching art, science and social progress. Erudite and with enviable artistic talent, he aroused envy and admiration, in Florence and Paris consecrated, the Italian government requested a self-portrait to be exhibited in the portrait gallery of the Uffizi museum, placed next to Ingres.
Upon returning to Brazil, he taught archaeology, art history and aesthetics at the Imperial Academy and directed the archeology and numismatics sections of the museum. His recognition here comes from creating a large painting about the war in Paraguay, the Battle of Campo Grande, praising the Empire and gaining support from the press. Lives between Brazil and Europe, in Florence, another commission from the Brazilian government, again about the war, The Battle of Avaí, carried out between 1874 and 1877. To paint it, 40 thousand books were removed from the library of the Convento Santíssima Annunciata, due to its size . It was exhibited in Florence, with the presence of D. Pedro II and several intellectuals who were in the city due to the celebrations of the fourth centenary of Michelangelo’s birth.
Pedro Américo in front of David’s sculpture speaks in two languages, he and the work were topics in all European newspapers and Pedro Américo was a personality featured in stores and cafes. At the end of the exhibition in Florence, the Battle of Avaí arrives in Rio de Janeiro, critics consider it mediocre and plagiarized from the painting Batalha de Montebello by Gustave Doré. Exhibited in a shed in Largo do Paço, there was an attempted fire in front of the public demonstration, in a confrontation between the painting by Pedro Américo and the work by Vitor Meirelles, Batalha dos Guararapes. In 1880, Pedro Américo wrote a speech on Plagiarism in Literature and Art, in an attempt to defend himself.
In 1888, he received a commission from the government of São Paulo, another large composition, the painting Independence or Death. Another criticism of plagiarism with the related painting by Ernest Meissonier Batalha Friedland, creating instability regarding the artist’s creativity. The following year he exhibited a photograph and studies of the work Independence or Death at the Universal Exhibition in Paris, praised by Meissonier himself and the entire academy. Commissions from the State for the artist are inserted within the context of Historical Painting, and understand a fact or event of humanity, however within this theme religious and mythological history is contained and we can say that it appears very early in the history of art; the representation of battles, coronations, invasions appears in the Baroque and reaches its peak in the 19th century.
Pedro Américo acquires an academic training, historical painting is the pinnacle of painting within the institution, something that every student and artist strives for, where completeness and power of synthesis are demonstrated. Historical painting, in this period, had already been shaken by Gustave Courbet’s Realism, mainly with his painting The Artist’s Studio of 1855, where he ironically classifies his painting as a realistic allegory and executes it in large dimensions, as historical paintings generally were. . Paintings to impress, to deceive, the history of the defeated. Thus, the painting Independence or Death is an allegory based on facts, a narrative for building the nation’s imagination.
Pedro Américo visits the Ipiranga region, draws and sketches the landscape, the plants, the house that served as support for the entourage, researches all the clothing. But, of course, he creates a composition pertinent to the theme, the independence of the country by Emperor D. Pedro I. There is a free poetic here, a heroism to be praised, triggering a symbolic image of the moment of the Scream. A synthesis of the independence movements, represented by the King. Historically, the moment is one of conflict with the entire political process that triggers the Republic. The symbolism of the Emperor as the protagonist of independence causes a stir, rejecting the entire process and battles for the cause.
It has been said that the work may be the best-known painting in Brazilian art, due to its image being used as an illustration in history books, but also rejected and ignored. Popularly, no one knows Pedro Américo and his painting became a mere illustration of a questioned episode, but we must understand that the work is a commission, and that the fact of the scream on the banks of the Ipiranga is real, and the work presents an idealized poetics of the moment, We must understand the historical process in which the work was created. Despite the artist’s training within the academy, his painting, his work, is much closer to romanticism and realism. Pedro Américo is expressive in his brushstrokes, accurate in colors and tones, paints quickly, dynamic in the passages of light and dark, a naturalist. Despite being a disciple of Ingres, he flirts with Gros and Gericault, artists who work within a romantic poetics, as opposed to the classical academy.
One of his last paintings, a commission from the Republic, is Tiradentes Esquartejado; here Gericault’s influence is direct. In addition to the theme, his painting is close to the naturalism unleashed in the last decades of the 19th century. It would be fair that Pedro Américo was grounded in the development of painting, plastically coherent with the period, which he would not classify as academic. The most naturalistic painting of the period, Rubinist.
The critic Gonzaga-Duque, in his book A Arte Brasileira, exalts and destroys him. He questions the choice of Historical Painting, which is outdated, but he sees the painting, the colors (which he admires), the composition and sees its qualities. In the Progress Chapter, Gonzaga-Duque opens with Pedro Américo, he is the Academy’s artist and concludes: “Qualities and defects, vulgarities and rarities, precision and prolixities, ingenuity and imitation, were the personality of Pedro Américo, perhaps the greatest and the nicest Brazilian artist.”