PARA ALÉM DO CENÁRIO, DO PALCO OU DO PITORESCO: a paisagem dos Campos Gerais no Paraná nos relatos de viagem do século XIX —Auguste de Saint-Hilaire, Thomas P. Bigg-Wither e Visconde de Taunay

Abstract

The period from the end of the XVIII century throughout the XIX is marked by the realization of the so called ―scientific expeditions‖, in which institutions and/or capitalists mobilized groups of scientists and capital with the objective of learning the potentialities and produce images about what they considered to be the ―rest of the world‖.Since the arrival of the portuguese crown and the opening of the brazilian harbors to international commerce, in 1808, Sérgio Buarque de Holanda proposes the idea of a ―new discovery of Brazil‖: excepting the first moments of portuguese colonization in brazilian lands, the country never seemed that appealing to the geographers, to the naturalists, to the economists, to the simple travelers, as in those years. The trips through the brazilian interior multiplied and the production and circulation of travel reports about the interior followed the same rhythm. From this period to the end of the XIX Century, the Campos Gerais, on the second Paraná plateau, were visited by european and brazilian travelers alike. The reports left by them constitute an important documental joint for Paraná‘s history and geography. From this joint, I have selected three to compose the research that follows. They are: Viagem pela comarca de Curitiba, by Auguste de Saint-Hilaire, about the trip the naturalist made in 1820;Novo caminho no Brasil Meridional, by Thomas Plantagenet Bigg-Wither, describes the permanence of the engineer in Paraná‘s lands through 1872-1874; and Viagem filosófica aos Campos Gerais e sertão de Guarapuava, by Visconde de Taunay,which narrates the trip of the then president of the province in 1886. In these three stories each one of the travelers highlights the Campos Gerais, devoting many pages describing the landscape, looking to expose the elements which composed it and insisting in it‘s great beauty and possible utility.