The main trends of the painting in colonial Brazil can be studied in the Cathedral of Salvador, Bahia, the church of the former Jesuit College. Dating from the late 17th Century, several cycles of paintings on the walls and the ceiling of the sacristy, of varying quality, accomplish particular symbolic functions; in conjunction with the sculpture of the altars, they compose a complex bel composto of Jesuit propaganda. To decorate the ceiling of their Library, above the sacristy, the Jesuits commissioned around 1735-1736 a huge quadratura from the Portuguese born painter António Simões Ribeiro (?-1755). This painting is discussed within the tradition of Library decoration in the Modern period. Besides the quadratura, Simões Ribeiro introduced in the Brazilian art the allegorical figures and became the first full-Baroque painter in Brazil and the initiator of the so-called Bahian School.
brazilian baroque picture; library ornamentation; António Simões Ribeiro
