Brazilian Academic art was a major art style in Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

 from the early 19th century to the early 20th century, based on European academic art

Academic art

Academic art is a style of painting and sculpture produced under the influence of European academies of art. Specifically, academic art is the art and artists influenced by the standards of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts, which practiced under the movements of Neoclassicism and Romanticism,...

 and produced on official institutions of professional art education.

Brazilian academic art was not affiliated with only one art movement

Art movement

An art movement is a tendency or style in art with a specific common philosophy or goal, followed by a group of artists during a restricted period of time, or, at least, with the heyday of the movement defined within a number of years...

, but rather with several different ones during its course. At first, it was part of the Neoclassicism

Neoclassicism

Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...

 movement, being one of its main forces of local diffusion. Later, it also incorporated the romanticism

Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

, realism

Realism

Realism, Realist or Realistic are terms that describe any manifestation of philosophical realism, the belief that reality exists independently of observers, whether in philosophy itself or in the applied arts and sciences. In this broad sense it is frequently contrasted with Idealism.Realism in the...

 and symbolism

Symbolism (arts)

Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...

 movements, as well as others that were typical of the 20th century turn, while cleansing them of any characteristic that did not fit academic formality.

The main official institution of Brazilian academic art was the Escola Real de Ciências, Artes e Ofícios (Royal School of Sciences, Arts and Crafts), founded in 1816 by Dom João VI, later renamed Academia Imperial de Belas Artes (Imperial Academy of Fine Arts) and finally Escola Nacional de Belas Artes (National School of Fine Arts). Its incorporation by the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro

Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro

The Federal University of Rio de Janeiro is one of the largest federal universities of Brazil, where public universities comprise the majority of the best and most qualified institutions...

 (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro), in 1931, marks the end of the academic art style in Brazil. Even so, the vibrant legacy of Brazilian academic art remains significant until present day.

Academic Art can also refer, in a broader sense, to any art produced under influence of academies and universities, at any time. In this sense, Brazilian academic art survived the emergence of modernism

Modernism

Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...

 and other 20th century art trends and continued after 1931, and thus contemporary Brazilian art schools and universities can be considered direct successors of the Escola Real de Ciências, Artes and Ofícios and the Académie des Beaux-Arts

Académie des beaux-arts

The Académie des Beaux-Arts is a French learned society. It is one of the five academies of the Institut de France.It was created in 1795 as the merger of the:* Académie de peinture et de sculpture...

.

Beginnings

The Missão Artística Francesa

Missão Artística Francesa

The French Artistic Mission in Brazil was composed by a group of French artists and architects that came to Rio de Janeiro, then the capital city of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves in March 1816, under the auspices of the royal court of Portugal, which was exiled in Brazil...

 (French Artistic Mission) arrived in Brazil in 1816 proposing the creation of an art academy modeled after the respected Académie des Beaux-Arts, with graduation courses both for artists and craftsmen for activities such as modeling

Model (art)

Art models are models who pose for photographers, painters, sculptors, and other artists as part of their work of art. Art models who pose in the nude for life drawing are usually called life models...

, decorating, carpentry

Carpentry

A carpenter is a skilled craftsperson who works with timber to construct, install and maintain buildings, furniture, and other objects. The work, known as carpentry, may involve manual labor and work outdoors....

 and others.

Joachim Lebreton

Joachim Lebreton

Joachim Lebreton was a French professor, public administrator and legislator.- Biography :Lebreton began his career as professor of Rhetoric at the Collège de Tulle....

, the leader of the Missão and founder of the project, determined the schedule of classes, course structure and assessment criteria. Moreover, he was also responsible for suggesting public employment for the graduates, ways to expand public collections and determining the human and material resources needed to run the school.

This proposal, immediately welcomed by Dom João VI, led to the founding of the Escola Real de Ciências Artes e Ofícios. However, the Escola would face serious practical difficulties in its start and would take at least ten years to get into operation permanently, leading to its reopening on November 5, 1826, in the presence of Emperor Dom Pedro I, as the Academia Imperial de Belas Artes. With the founding of the Escola were created the initial conditions for the birth of academic art in Brazil, and both Brazilian academic art and the Escola would be inextricably linked.