Abstract
The text reexamines issues the author approached in a lecture done at Escola de Belas Artes of Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, in 1997, and draws attention to a crucial topic in Araujo Porto Alegre's thought - the political and cultural scope of this work, whose author Zilio reputes a very public intelectual in Nineteenth-Century Brazil. In this manner, the modernity of the work would reside, for Zilio, above all in its public scope; he still enphasizes the political role Porto Alegre assigned to a national school of fine arts, as well as the iluminist conception inspiring him in this task, as it interlaced ethical and aesthetic motifs.
keywords:
Manuel de Araújo Porto Alegre; modernity; Imperial Academy of Fine Arts; Brazilian art; art criticism
