Art and Its Environments in Brazil

Catalog description

From the first moment of contact between Amerindians and Europeans in 1500 through the end of the colonial regime in 1822, Brazils nature has been variously seen as Amazonian paradise, as a resource-rich Atlantic forest, as green hell. Through such media as earthworks, featherwork, body arts, performance, landscape painting, sculpture, and architecture, this course examines the mediation of art and nature in Colonial Brazil. We will consider how this intersection of the cultural and the natural have shaped not only our understanding of Colonial Brazil, but have had a profound impact on eco- and ethno-political debates today.