O olho peripatético: a mecânica da visão dos viajantes oitocentistas em terras brasileiras

Abstract

The role of the contemplation of landscapes, opening of visuals and situation in positions of command of the surroundings is important for the understanding and design of the Architecture. In order to reconstitute the historiography of this scopic concern, the consultation of the literature of eighteenth-century travelers in Brazil revealed a mechanics radically different from the current mode of landscape enjoyment. It had an articulation with other forms of eye education, corresponding and convergent, in an intricate interweaving, such as painting, literature, gardening and botany. In the mobilized synesthetic spectrum, the most important and complex of the senses is the vision. The look is far from static. In its most complex feature, it has motor components on at least three scales: the body, the head and the eyes. At the body scale, with paths and its apices, with long periods unworthy of note, and apogees, generally in elevated places, where a dazzling panorama was seen. These moments were the compensation of strenuous journeys, and even their goal. The pleasure of contemplation was related to the necessary displacement, intentional or accidental, to the belvedere. Similarly, the circumstances of transport, in particular by boat. At the head scale, with the panoramic glance of the eye. At the eye scale, scanning the scene, walking through the details, reproducing the logic of the admiration of a painting. It was the empire of variety and richness - at all levels, like paths or the elements in the landscape. Another important aspect in the journey was the alternation of the panoramic with the microscopic, of the great landscapes to the small animals. If it was not the real mechanics of gaze, at least it was the conscious, the expected and codified, related to the cultured habits of that time, which even had its philosophical premises explicit, of an eye that needed to be satiated with continuous impressions. It was a motor architecture of the sensibility that was broken by several reasons and rearticulated in other patterns and sets, with some remains throughout the XXth century.