The Brazilian <i>Campos</i> in Nineteenth-Century Landscape Art

Authors

Abstract

The mosaic of tropical grasslands, savannahs, and woodlands in the Brazilian Highlands, commonly called <i>campos</i> in the early nineteenth century and <i>Cerrado</i> nowadays, was depicted by European traveling artists and naturalists following new modes of visualization in arts and sciences, in dialogue with Alexander von Humboldt. Illustrations in travel albums presented landscapes following sensorial experiences from the journeys and physiognomic and phytogeographic features studied in the field. They document the transformations of the territory by the advancing settler colonization, with a strong focus on cattle ranching, hunting, and burning of the grasslands.

Author Biography

André S. Bailão, University of São Paulo, Brazil

André S. Bailão is a PhD candidate at the University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil, under the supervision of Lilia K. Moritz Schwarcz, where he researches the history of the Cerrado and tropical landscapes in nineteenth- and twentieth-century travel literature, art, and science. He has done research in the fields of history of science, anthropology of science, climate change, environmental history and humanities, and visual culture. He is an editor and coordinator of the Enciclopédia de Antropologia, an online, open-access encyclopedia of anthropology currently hosted at USP.

Painting by Rugendas

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Published

2021-04-16

Issue

2021

Section

Spring

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Copyright (c) 2021 André S. Bailão

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.