“Continua a febre dos monumentos”: The statuomanie in the Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) press (1880s-1930s)

Abstract

This article discusses how the carioca press and intellectuals understood and analyzed the expansion of public sculpture in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, between the 1880s and the 1930s. It aims to investigate how these actors appropriated the idea of “statuomanie”, interpreting the carioca urban reality in the light of what was happening in France. This article argues that it was not a mere “importation” of a foreign idea to the local environment, but rather a process of intense reworking and adaptation of the concept according to the context of political and ideological conflicts at the time. These analyses were conducted with data collected
by means of documentary sources such as articles published in newspapers and illustrated magazines in Rio de Janeiro, as well as in the French press.