“Preciosidades e relíquias históricas dignas de serem tombadas”: Gustavo Barroso e o patrimônio cearense na querela intelectual modernista (1934-1959)

Abstract

When we understand that heritage is a plural concept that was historically built by intellectuals acting politically in public institutions, we seek to reflect the processes of systematization and institutionalization of national memory between 1934 and 1959. For that, we will take Ceará as an imagetic-discursive space elaborated on from the patrimonial landscape cartography by subjects that were institutionally located in the Museu Histórico Nacional (MHN) and in the Serviço de Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico Nacional (SPHAN). This time frame is due to the foundation of the Inspetoria de Monumentos Nacionais, under the tutelage of the MHN, and the death of Gustavo Barroso, director of the museum between 1922 and 1959. Highlighting the intellectual disputes between the identity projects of the MHN and SPHAN, we analyze how conceptions and preservation practices were developed concurrently with the process of visualizing Ceará's material culture through Barroso's historiographical narrative and the preservation of his historical and artistic heritage based on the legal instrument established by Decree-Law No. 25 of November 30, 1937, tipping. Therefore, striving to achieve these objectives, we use the annals of the MHN, the heritage magazines published by SPHAN, the historiographical narratives of Gustavo Barroso published in the newspaper O Cruzeiro and the processes of overturning the Archaeological Collection of the Former Normal School of Fortaleza (1941) and the Igreja Matriz do Aracati (1956) as information support in which it allowed us to access the complex field of dispute established in the interior of the Brazilian state between the 30s and 50s of the 20th century.