Visualising Brazil in the 19th century

This article explores the visual archive of Brazil in the 19th century, from the expansion of Rio de Janeiro to the abolition of slavery. It discusses the modernization of the country, the impact of slavery, and the rise of capitalism. The article also highlights the work of French artist Jean Baptiste Debret and his depictions of life in Rio de Janeiro.

VISUALIZING BRAZIL IN
THE 19TH CENTURY

Table of Contents
VISUALIZING BRAZIL IN 19th CENTURY...............................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

VISUALIZING BRAZIL IN 19th CENTURY
Imperial Rio de Janeiro:
The visualization of Brazil began from the session of Rio de Janeiro wherein colonial city
was replaced with Lisbon which become capital of Portuguese empire. During the period of
1808-1821 the boundaries of the city started expanding (Bicalho and Schiavinatto, 2021). Urban
economy grew and started diversified. Here modernity with respect to newness along with
understanding of the historical time began. Under this aspect newness also occurred with respect
to modernity in the economic, social, political as well as cultural changes. With the aspect of
modernization, people's life started changing under which a new phase with respect to modern
time began.
With the aspect of Rostow's theory modernization began with a single move towards the
path of newness which will lead to bring positive changes, beneficial and relative less painful
changes. With this aspect every aspect including power, labour, communication, transportation
and various others started developing. The concept of modernity implemented with the aspect of
space as well as time. Colonization in Europe occurred in various different phases which was
being experienced by different people in different manner (Shodipe, 2020). However, the major
change occur when European encountered Asia, America, Africa and Ocenia. With the aspect of
colonization a new world is being created. With this aspect the entire Europe is reshaped.
Early 19th Century and development towards modernization:
Under this visual archive with regard to Brazil is produced with the French artist Jean
Baptiste Debret. When Napoleon falls, Debret travelled to Rio de Janeiro in 1816 with the aim of
founding a career as court printer which later become the founder of Brazalian academy of Arts.
Along with court painting, Debret also started recording the life of Rio de Janeiro (Valle, 2020).
As per its recording the movement of Rio de Janeiro from colonial to imperial city can be made
noticed that how changes and modernization occur in Rio de Janeiro and how various aspect
including lifestyle and industrial and other activities get evolved.
In addition, of this Debret in its book Historic and Picturesque Voyage to Brazil, also
depict the visual image of Rio de Janeiro that in 1820 where a slave life with respect to the
people of Rio de Janeiro was living and with the aspect of modernization, movement, growth
and newness with respect to every aspect of the country is being noticed and visualized. Debret

depict savages as idealised images of indigenous people of the forest (Godfrey, 2021). These
indigenous people came to reality with the depicted and visualized image from the book of
Debret. It can also be right to said that the visualization from the early age of slavery to the
modern and newness is being seen and depicted in the book of Debret. This modernization is
closely linked with the aspect of urbanization under which development and growth is clearly
seen from making a comparison between 1808 to the 19th century when movement of Debret was
performed with the perspective of learning court art. Thus, through this aspect the entire
modernization will be visualized.
Brazil had plethora of history, where visualization of 18th century enables us to analyze
that over one million slaves has been imported from Brazil since slave trade within British
colonies in Caribbean (Seyler and Silve, 2021).
Over half a million slaves are imported which analyses slave trade reached peak at
60,000 in single year and also further there was force of British Naval. New anti-slave trade got
signed on 4th September where it was last known attempt to land slaves in Brazil. Increased fear
of slave in Brazil also further lead to slave revolt which further resulted in birth rates remained
law, high rise on morality rates and high rates of manumission and escape. The historical
visualization of 1850 slave population, became heavily concentrated in coffee areas within
Centre South of Brazil, which remained an integral part of ancient history time period. Coffee
planter still found slavery of highly profitable form of labour, where little and significant anti-
slavery options were there (Miki, 2021).
After 1880, Brazilian Anti-slavery society was formed and abolitionism in Brazil was
concerned primarily with economic progress perspectives. Capitalist development and freeing of
capital immobilized slavery, further supposed greater productivity within profitability of free
over slave labour. Also wages and consumption of resources has been analyzed to be
significantly declining, where Brazil went through stages of huge decline within human history.
Abolition in Brazil was concerned primarily with economic progress, capitalist’s development
and freeing of immobilized slavery where there was greater productivity and profitability of free
over slave labor wages and consumption (Leonard Bell, 2014).
This also functionally further analyses specific aspects of Brazil historical civilization,
where slavery became an integral part within livelihood. The Brazilian princess Isabel of
Bragnca signed the imperial law number 3,353 where it was the most important legislation

within Brazilian history. This led to abolishment of slavery in country, and further bringing on
diverse scale rise further evolved as per new revolution coming up variedly (Leslie Bethell,
1970).
The 1882 period, further lead to monarchy surrounded by republics where investment in
ritual forms and tropical monarchy was there. The general loyalty of Brazilian population to
government, seated upon throne covered with rich tapestry drawn above tops of palm trees
where, visualization of Brazil history has been done. It also has been identified that display of
nature, where depiction of flora and fauna of Brazil further integrates focus towards rich heritage
and beautiful landscapes (Sadlier,2008). Portraying slave labor system identifies beginning of
people within social structure certainly, which extensively further lead to capitalist’s labor
having extensive movement. Historical cultural analysis of Brazilian labor slave period, also
enables to bring on detailed understanding on factors further pertaining toward food production,
farming and r productions within textiles. Life of domestic slave was intimately bound to life
patterns and temporal fluctuations of the master and mistress, where Brazil has been undergoing
towards varied historical aspects within that period. There has been significant movement on
transformation form genuine atrocity of punishment to untapped historical analysis, depicting
historical scenarios of Brazilian century (Oliveira-Monte, 2021).

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Bicalho, M.F.B. and Schiavinatto, I.L.F., 2021. An Empire in the Tropics, 1808–1821: A
Historiographical Review. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History.
del Carmen Cortizo, M. and Ruviaro, D., 2021. Brazil: fascism or neo-slavery. Revista
Katálysis, 24(1), p.76.
Godfrey, B.J., 2021. Preserving Whose City?: Memory, Place, and Identity in Rio de Janeiro.
Rowman & Littlefield.
Leonard Bell, ‘Not quite Darwin’s artist: the travel art of Augustus Earle’, Journal of Historical
Geography 43 (2014), 60-70.
Leslie Bethell, The Abolition of the Brazilian Slave Trade (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity
Press 1970).
Miki, Y., 2021. Citizens of nowhere: illegal slavery and racial silence in the African and
Indigenous histories of Postcolonial Brazil. Citizenship Studies, pp.1-17.
Oliveira-Monte, E. K., 2021. Slavery Unseen: Sex, Power, and Violence in Brazilian History by
Lamonte Aidoo. Revista Hispánica Moderna, 74(1), pp.127-129.
Sadlier, D. J., ‘Regal Brazil’, in Brazil Imagined: 1500 to the Present (University of Texas Press,
2008)
Seyler, F. and Silve, A., 2021. Frontier planters, immigrants, and the abolition of slavery in
Brazil. Available at SSRN 3866950.
Shodipe, M., 2020. Gbójú Nbe! Urban Slang as Sociolinguistic Expression in Selected
Nollywood Films. Identities, Histories and Values in Postcolonial Nigeria, p.199.
Valle, A., 2020. From “Academy” to “School”: Transformations in the Academy of Fine Arts in
Rio de Janeiro (1816–1930). In Academies and Schools of Art in Latin America (pp. 33-
48). Routledge.
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