The royal pose in the jungle: the representation of the bandeirantes and the European monarchic's portrait tradition

Abstract

This article is dedicated to the study of the adoption and diffusion of a pictorial convention - the royal pose established in the portraits by Hyacinthe Rigaud - seen in paintings and sculptures representing bandeirantes (paulistas' bushmen) that belong to the Museu Paulista. The Museum received these works of art, examples of the so called "historical painting", between 1903 and 1922, together with artifacts devoted to the evocation and celebration of the Paulista past as a guiding principle of the Brazilian History. The paintings and sculptures are understood as part of this interpretation, for they constituted a visual media capable of dignifying and praising characters of the sertanista (bushmen) period, mainly through the form they represented the body, showing both power and solemnity.