Cultural diplomacy in the national construction of Brazil: the French artistic mission of 1816

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role played by Portuguese authorities alongside Joachim Le Breton in the establishment of the 1816 French artistic mission to Brazil, as an international movement that could be understood as a notable predecessor to what we know today as cultural diplomacy. Cultural diplomacy is a term that often refers to the instrumentalization and projection of culture into the international arena. In this sense, culture was leveraged as an international asset for the construction of the Brigantine monarchy in Brazil. In this article we propose a wider approach in which “European culture” is instrumentalized by a state to elevate a colony to an Empire, capable of accommodating its European ruling class and sovereign.

Keywords

• Cultural Diplomacy
• Portuguese court in Brazil
• Brazilian cultural policy
• Dom João VI
• French Artistic Mission