Antônio Francisco Lisboa (c. 29 August 1730 or 1738 – 18 November 1814), better known as Aleijadinho (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.
A sculptor in colonial Minas Gerais
Antônio Francisco Lisboa was the son of a respected Portuguese master builder and architect, Manuel Francisco Lisboa, 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. 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.
A religious landscape in stone
Aleijadinho's greatest achievement in full-figure sculpture are the sets at the Sanctuary of Bom Jesus de Matosinhos, in Congonhas — the 66 statues of the Via Sacra, Via Crucis or Passos da Paixão, distributed in six independent chapels, and the Twelve Prophets in the churchyard. All the scenes on the Via Sacra, carved between 1796 and 1799, are intensely dramatic, and this effect is heightened by the bright colors of the life-size statues, painted, as indicated in a contract signed in 1798 by Master Ataíde and Francisco Xavier Carneiro. However, it is not certain that Carneiro worked on the pieces, as there are no payments made to him in Book 1 of Expenses until 1837, when it ends. The typology of the Via Sacra is old, dating back to the Sacro Monte tradition, born in Italy centuries before being re-enacted in Congonhas.
The type consists of a set of scenes from the Passion of Jesus, of a theatrical and pathetic nature, explicitly intended to invoke pity and compassion, briefly reconstructing the journey of Jesus from the Last Supper to his crucifixion. The scenes are usually arranged in a series of chapels that precede a temple placed on top of a hill or mountain — hence the name Sacro Monte — exactly as is the case with the Sanctuary of Congonhas, erected by Feliciano Mendes in payment of a promise and imitating the model of the homonymous shrine in Braga, Portugal.
Style, attribution, and historical evidence
As with other colonial artists, identifying Aleijadinho's works is difficult due to the fact that artists of the time did not sign their works and the scarcity of documentary sources. In general, documents such as contracts and receipts agreed between religious brotherhoods and artists are the safest sources for attributing authorship. Also other documents, such as the Memory of the councilor of Mariana transcribed by Bretas and the oral tradition are useful elements. Stylistic comparisons between authenticated works and those of suggested authorship can be used to identify the author, although this criterion is always conjectural, even more so because it is known that Aleijadinho's "typical" style created a school, being continued by a large number of sculptors from Minas Gerais and copied until today by saint-makers in the region. Aleijadinho worked during the transition period from Baroque to Rococo; his work reflects characteristics of both.
However, the distinction between them is not always clear, which makes many critics consider them a unit; for these critics, Rococo represents the final phase of the Baroque cycle. Others, in turn, understand Rococo as an autonomous and differentiated current. This debate affects Aleijadinho directly, and sometimes confuses the definition of his personal style and his insertion in the great international aesthetic currents. Baroque, which emerged in Europe at the beginning of the 17th century, was a style of reaction against the Classicism of the Renaissance, whose conceptual bases revolved around symmetry, proportionality and containment, rationality and formal balance.