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The rich history of Brazil’s visual arts is echoed by the country’s museums, which hold notable collections of Brazilian and international art. Here are just six paintings in those collections.
Earlier versions of the descriptions of these paintings first appeared in 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die
, edited by Stephen Farthing (2018). Writers names appear in parentheses.
Allegory of the Four Continents America (c. 1820)
The artist depicting this idealized scene of a native man unassaulted in the landscape was José Teófilo de Jesus, a principal figure in the Bahian school of painting. De Jesus worked under religious orders to produce delicately colored murals on church ceilings in the Bahian capital. He was also commissioned to paint a portrait of Pedro I, the first emperor of Brazil. Painted after approximately 400 years of oppression, resistance, and social disintegration,