Images in Combat: Visual Culture and Representation Disputes in the War Against Paraguay (1864–1870)

cultura visual e disputas de representação na Guerra contra o Paraguai (1864–1870)

Abstract

This article investigates how the War against Paraguay (1864–1870) was visually constructed through two major vectors of iconographic production in Imperial Brazil: the collection Quadros históricos da guerra do Paraguay and the images published in illustrated periodicals by artists such as Henrique Fleiuss and Angelo Agostini, as analyzed in the thesis The battles through the periodicals: the war against Paraguay and the trajectories of Henrique Fleiuss and Angelo Agostini in the press between 1864–1870. The objective is to understand how the conflict was narrated, appropriated, and challenged through images that, while seeking to exalt the nation and glorify the Empire, also reveal ambivalences, disputes, and silences. Using a methodology that combines material reading, iconographic analysis, and historical contextualization, the article situates these images within the field of nineteenth-century visual culture, interpreting them as central artifacts in shaping a political and pedagogical imaginary of the war.