Gonzaga DuqueLuís Gonzaga Duque Estrada, known as Gonzaga Duque (21 June 1863, Rio de Janeiro - 29 September 1911, Rio de Janeiro) was a Brazilian writer and critic. He was of Swedish descent on his father's side. Life and workAfter completing his primary education, he enrolled at the prestigious Colégio Abílio , then studied at the Colégio Meneses Vieira. He completed his studies at the Colégio Paixão in Petrópolis. It would appear that he never attended a university. His best known work, the novel Mocidade Morta (1900, Dead Youth), deals with young artists during the Segundo Reinado , a period from 1840 to 1889, when the Republic of Brazil was established, and their opposition to the prevailing conservativism. The initial reviews were not kind; calling it boring, morbid and full of pseudo-intellectual chatter.[1] Later, it received some praise for its documentary value.[2] Recent criticism calls it a significant contribution to understanding the artistic community of late 19th century Brazil and its relationship to the outdated approaches taught at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts.[3] As a critic, he produced the first systematic examination of Brazilian art in his book A Arte Brasileira. This came during a period when the artists there were beginning to make a living entirely from the proceeds of their painting. In 1907, he was a co-founder of the cultural journal, Fon-Fon . Known to be an unsparing critic in the cause of modernism, his caustic comments about the works of João Zeferino da Costa, who worked in a conservative, classical style, discouraged Da Costa from ever exhibiting again. A familiar face among Rio's artistic milieu, his portrait was painted by Eliseu Visconti, Belmiro de Almeida, Rodolfo Amoedo and Presciliano Silva , among others. The Brazilian art scholar, Vera Lins, has done a thorough study of his work, which is available online. Bibliography
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