1832 -1903 · Imperial Brazil, national history and panoramas

Naval battles, founding myths and romantic figures make Victor Meirelles one of the great visual builders of Brazilian history.

Victor Meirelles de Lima was born in 1832 in Nossa Senhora do Desterro, today Florianopolis, and died in Rio de Janeiro in 1903. At a very young age, his talent allowed him to join the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in Rio. At twenty, he won the travel prize in Europe and stayed from 1853 to 1861 in Italy then in France, where the study of masters, academic drawing and history painting prepared his great compositions. The First Mass in Brazil, exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1861, became a founding image of the Empire: landscape, groups and ceremony organized an ideal vision of national origins. Meirelles then received commissions devoted to conflicts and memory of the country. The Naval Battle of Riachuelo and the Humaita Passage approach the Paraguayan War through two opposing registers, one spectacular and the other nocturnal, almost abstract. The Battle of Guararapes condenses a historical confrontation into a melee constructed with academic rigor. Moema, inspired by Indianist literature, transforms the heroine's body on the shore into a romantic elegy. Professor at the Academy, Meirelles trains several generations while later developing vast panoramas of Rio de Janeiro and national history. Professor at the Academy, Meirelles trains several generations while later developing vast panoramas of Rio de Janeiro and national history. After the proclamation of the Republic, official imperial art lost its prestige and its end of life became difficult. However, his work remains essential for understanding how painting gave shape to the collective stories of Brazil in the 19th century. The "Victor Meirelles" selection notably compares Passage d’Humaita and Naval Battle of Riachuelo. His reading favors figures.

Meirelles composes history as a shared memory: landscape, crowd and light transform the event into a national image.