Aleijadinho

Antônio Francisco Lisboa (c. 29 August 1730 or 1738 – 18 November 1814), better known as Aleijadinho (Portuguese pronunciation: [aleiʒaˈdʒiɲu], lit. 'little cripple'), was a sculptor, carver and architect of Colonial Brazil, noted for his works on and in various churches of Brazil. With a style related to Baroque and Rococo, Aleijadinho is considered almost by consensus as the greatest exponent of colonial art in Brazil by Brazilian critics and, surpassing Brazilian borders, for some foreign scholars he is the greatest name of Baroque in the Americas.

Little is known with certainty about his biography, which remains shrouded in legend and controversy to this day, making the research work on his life very arduous. The main documentary source on Aleijadinho is a biographical note written only about forty years after his death. His trajectory is reconstructed mainly through the works he left behind, although even in this context his contribution is controversial, since the attribution of authorship for most of the more than four hundred creations that exist today associated with his name was made without any documentary evidence, based only on stylistic similarity with documented pieces.

All of his work, including carvings, architectural projects, reliefs and statuary, was carried out in Minas Gerais, especially in the cities of Ouro Preto, Sabará, São João del-Rei and Congonhas. The main monuments that contain his works are the Church of Saint Francis of Assisi in Ouro Preto and the Sanctuary of Bom Jesus of Matosinhos.

Little is known about the life of Antônio Francisco Lisboa. Practically all the data available today are derived from a biography written in 1858 by Rodrigo José Ferreira Bretas, 44 years after Aleijadinho's death, allegedly based on documents and testimonies of individuals who had known the artist personally. However, recent criticism has tended to consider this biography largely fanciful, part of a process of magnification and dramatization of his personality and work, in a romanticized manipulation of his figure whose aim was to elevate him to the status of an icon of Brazilianness, a mix of hero and artist, a "singular genius, sacred and consecrated", as Roger Chartier described it. Bretas' account, however, cannot be completely discarded, since being the oldest substantial biographical note on Aleijadinho, most of the later biographies were based on it, but the information it brings needs to be seen with some skepticism, being difficult to distinguish what is fact from what has been distorted by popular tradition and by the writer's interpretations. Biographies and critical studies carried out by Brazilian modernists in the first half of the 20th century also made biased interpretations of his life and work, increasing the amount of stereotypes around him, which are still perpetuated today in the popular imagination and in part of the critics, and are explored both by official cultural instances and by tourism agencies in the cities where he left his production.

The first official news about Aleijadinho appeared in 1790 in a memorandum written by captain Joaquim José da Silva, complying with the royal order of 20 July 1782, which determined that notable events, of which there was certain news, that had occurred since the foundation be recorded in an official book of the Captaincy of Minas Gerais. The memorandum, written while Aleijadinho was still alive, contained a description of the artist's most notable works and some biographical indications, and was partly based on it that Bretas wrote Traços biográficos relativos ao finado Antônio Francisco Lisboa, distinto escultor mineiro, mais conhecido pelo apelido de Aleijadinho, where he reproduced excerpts from the original document, which was later lost.

Antônio Francisco Lisboa was the son of a respected Portuguese master builder and architect, Manuel Francisco Lisboa [pt], and his African slave, Isabel. In the baptismal certificate, cited by Bretas, it appears that Antônio, born a slave, was baptized on 29 August 1730, in what was then the town of Vila Rica (currently Ouro Preto) in the parish of Nossa Senhora da Conceição de Antônio Dias, with Antônio dos Reis as his godparent and being manumitted on the occasion by his father. The birth certificate does not contain the child's date of birth, which may have occurred a few days earlier. However, there are strong arguments that currently lead to considering it more likely that he was born in 1738, as his death certificate states the date of his death as 18 November 1814, adding that the artist was then 76 years old. The 1738 date is accepted by the Aleijadinho Museum, located in Ouro Preto, and according to biographer Silvio de Vasconcelos, the original manuscript by Bretas, found in the archives of the Archdiocese of Mariana, refers the birth to 1738, warning that the date corresponds to that recorded on Aleijadinho's death certificate; the reason for the discrepancy between the dates in the manuscript and the booklet that was printed is unclear. In 1738 Aleijadinho's father married Maria Antônia de São Pedro, an Azorean, and with her he gave Aleijadinho four half-siblings, and it was in this family that the artist grew up.

According to Bretas, Aleijadinho's knowledge of drawing, architecture and sculpture was obtained from his father and perhaps from draftsman and painter João Gomes Batista. From 1750 to 1759, he would have attended the boarding school at the Seminary of the Franciscans Donatos of the Hospício da Terra Santa, in Ouro Preto, where he would have learned grammar, latin, mathematics and religion. Meanwhile, he assisted his father in the work he carried out at the Church of Antônio Dias and the Casa dos Contos [pt], also working with his uncle Antônio Francisco Pombal, a carver, and Francisco Xavier de Brito [pt]. He collaborated with José Coelho Noronha in the work of carving the altars of the Mother Church of Caeté, his father's project. His first individual project dates back to 1752, a design for the fountain in the courtyard of the Governors Palace [pt] in Ouro Preto.

In 1756 Aleijadinho may have gone to Rio de Janeiro accompanying Friar Lucas de Santa Clara, the transporter of gold and diamonds that were to be shipped to Lisbon, where he may have been influenced by local artists. Two years later, he would have created a soapstone fountain for the Terra Santa Hospice and soon after launched himself as a self-employed professional. However, being a mulatto, he was often forced to accept contracts as a day laborer and not as a master. From the 1760s until close to his death, Aleijadinho produced a large number of works, but in the absence of supporting documentation, several have a controversial authorship and are strictly considered only attributions, based on criteria of stylistic similarity with his authenticated production. With his father's death in 1767, Aleijadinho, as a bastard son, was not contemplated in the will. The following year, he enlisted in the Infantry Regiment of the Brown Men of Ouro Preto, where he remained for three years, without discontinuing his artistic activity. During this period, he received important commissions: the design of the façade of the Church of Our Lady of Carmel [pt], in Sabará, and the pulpits of the Church of Saint Francis of Assisi, in Ouro Preto.