Many years after the artist Jean-Baptiste Debret is celebrated not for the fine art that he loved and taught, but for the sketching of street scenes. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
Todays stamp depicts street scenes from the early days of Brazil’s independence. This of course is completely understandable. The artists mission in Brazil had been much grander but less successful and less remembered.
The stamp today is issue A626, a 30 Centavo stamp issued by Brazil on May 19th, 1970. It displays the Brazilian work of French artist Jean-Baptiste Debret. It was part of a two stamp issue. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $1.25 in its cancelled state.
Debret was born in Paris in 1768. He was trained as a neoclassical painter and trained in France and Italy. He was a Bonapartist and after Napoleon’s final defeat he took part in an artist mission to Brazil. Brazil was in the process of breaking away from Portugal and the mission of French artist were tasked with setting up school of fine arts and creating a local art scene in Rio.
The fact that Brazil early governments were Imperial lead to a different tact than one might expect in a newly independent country. Instead of training local artists to capture better the local situation, the school more saw itself as bringing European civilization to a back ward colony. The new school taught how to do portraits and how to make copies of the masters. The French teachers sought to eke out a little extra money by painting portraits of the Emperors Court.
There was really very little demand for this in Brazil and the Emperors of Brazil were very parsimonious with their support. The French in Brazil were also enemies as they resented the ties to discredited Bonapartism. Soon after the last Emperor left power, the fine art school was absorbed by the local university.
Debret was related to a better known French artist named Jacques-Louis David. He sent his relative some sketches of street scenes from Rio of the period. Many featured Africans in the days of slavery in Brazil. David encouraged Debret to paint more and passed them around the art scene in Paris. There were very few artists doing street scenes in Rio and over time they became a valuable record of everyday life at the time.
Debret eventually gave up on Brazil, returning to Paris. He was quite poor and returned to his neoclassical style. He was a member of the French Academy and published a 3 volume book of his time in Brazil. The work however was not successful and he resorted to doing lithographs of his better known relatives work.
I can see why the fine art school failed in nineteenth century Brazil. There are only a few in the upper class that appreciate it. However a more populist government in Brazil would have probably offered no support whatever for the arts. It is a very common thing for a newly independent place to try to find a local school of art. Most do not work out but as I do more stamps we may find more places where some success was achieved. Postage stamps are a great way to scout out the local art scene.
Well my drink is empty and so I will open the conversation in the below comment section. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.