Review of the book “Fotografia e Império: Paisagens para um Brasil moderno”

Abstract

In “Photography and Empire: Landscapes for a Modern Brazil,” Natalia Brizuela (2012) presents the reader with an overview of nineteenth-century Brazil from photographs, stating that these images were intensely present in the construction of the national imaginary. Thus, the author emphasizes the important relationship between the photographs of this period with the configuration of space and the Brazilian territory. Whether with the landscapes (sights) produced at the imperial court of Dom Pedro II; the simultaneously technical and magical photography of Hercule Florence, which tell a story on the banks of the Empire; the portraits (called cartes de visite) that established the symbolism of slavery and white superiority; or in the images of Flávio de Barros on the War of Canudos, a sign of the formation of the New Republic, Brizuela’s book shows the capacity of photography to both disenchant and re-enact nature and the world.