His trajectory is reconstructed mainly through the works he left behind, although even in this context his contribution is controversial, since the attribution of authorship for most of the more than four hundred creations that exist today associated with his name was made without any documentary evidence, based only on stylistic similarity with documented pieces.

[1][2] However, recent criticism has tended to consider this biography largely fanciful, part of a process of magnification and dramatization of his personality and work, in a romanticized manipulation of his figure whose aim was to elevate him to the status of an icon of Brazilianness, a mix of hero and artist, a "singular genius, sacred and consecrated", as Roger Chartier described it.

Bretas' account, however, cannot be completely discarded, since being the oldest substantial biographical note on Aleijadinho, most of the later biographies were based on it, but the information it brings needs to be seen with some skepticism, being difficult to distinguish what is fact from what has been distorted by popular tradition and by the writer's interpretations.

On 4 March 1776, the governor of the Captaincy of Minas Gerais, Dom Antônio de Noronha, following the instructions of the viceroy, summoned masons, carpenters, locksmiths and blacksmiths to join a military battalion that would work on the reconstruction of a fort in Rio Grande do Sul.

[14] Aleijadinho was described by Bretas in the following terms:[14] "He was dark brown, had a strong voice, a passionate speech, and an angry temper: his stature was short, his body was full and poorly shaped, his face and head were round, and his forehead was voluminous, his hair was black and curly, that of his beard [was] bushy and broad, broad forehead, regular and somewhat pointed nose, thick lips, large ears, and short neck".Almost nothing is recorded about his personal life, except that he liked to entertain himself in "vulgar dances" and eat well, and that he fell in love with the mulatto Narcisa, with whom he had a son.

However, this search is a peculiar interpretation of the aesthetic phenomenon that was born during Romanticism in the 19th century, when the creator began to be strongly associated with his creation, the latter being considering an exclusive property of the former, and attributing to the work the ability to display genuine reflections of personality and the individual soul that produced it.

Art tended to be considered a product of public utility, the clients determined the approach to be employed in the work, the stories and motifs did not belong to anyone, and the artist's personal voice should not prevail over established formal canons and collective concepts which they sought to convey, nor could the creator, in general terms, claim intellectual property over what he wrote, sculpted or painted.

The account of midwife Joana Lopes, a woman from the people who served as the basis for both the stories that spread by word of mouth and for the work of biographers and historians, made Antônio Francisco Lisboa the arhcetype of the genius cursed by the disease.

This is an inexplicable fact if Bretas' biography or the 19th century reports of travelers, such as Luccock, Friedrich von Weech, Francis de Castelnau and others, certainly repeating what they had heard from the locals, claiming Aleijadinho had lost not only fingers, but even his hands, are taken into account.

[2] Chartier, Hansen, Grammont and others have echoed the same arguments as Gomes Júnior; Barretto added that the figure of Aleijadinho is currently a decoy for tourism in Ouro Preto to such an extent that his illness, represented in the books, is "commercialized" in some tourist spots in the city.

[23][26][27] In the midst of this web of dubious biographical constructions largely consecrated by tradition, several scholars have tried to separate fact from legend, in an effort that began almost at the same time as the mythical image around it was created, with the pioneering writings of José Mariano Filho and Roger Bastide on this topic, later supported by several others such as those of the aforementioned authors.

[40][41] In competition with Protestant dissidents, the Catholic clergy sought, in short, to co-opt more followers by translating the abstract meanings of their religion into a highly rhetorical visual language, which had a scenographic and declamatory sense, and which expressed itself full of hyperbole and other figures of speech, which was plastically reflected in the extreme complexity of the carving work and in the agitated and convoluted movement of the statuary, pictorial and architectural forms, which seduced by their sumptuousness and by the easily understandable motifs by the people.

The Rococo ensemble of churches in Minas Gerais is of special importance both for its richness and variety and for being a witness to a very specific phase of Brazilian history, when the region concentrated the attention of the Portuguese metropole for its large deposits of gold and diamonds and constituted the first nucleus of an eminently urban society in Brazil.

The style typically practiced in Minas Gerais had its main center in the old Vila Rica, today Ouro Preto, founded in 1711, but it also flourished vigorously in Diamantina, Mariana, Tiradentes, Sabará, Cachoeira do Campo, São João del-Rei, Congonhas and a number of other mining towns and villages.

The softening was also imprinted on the architecture, with more elegant facades and more decorative porticos, larger windows for more effective internal lighting, busier plants, more docile materials such as soapstone, and interiors with a predominance of white, interspersed with more delicate and graceful carving, more expansive and also more sparse, often resorting to patterns derived from the shape of the shell with clear polychromies.

The general approach to sacred iconography, however, was not greatly affected by Rococo in countries with a strong counter-reformist tradition such as Portugal and Brazil, continuing what was described about the theme in the Baroque, including the case of the sculptural works of Aleijadinho, whose drama and eloquence are remarkable.

An enormous cosmopolitan irregularity, which would have led him to something hopelessly dilettante if not for the strength of his conviction imprinted in his immortal works".Sometimes Aleijadinho is analyzed as a transitional element between Baroque and Rococo, as is the case of Bazin, Brandão, Mills, Taylor and Graham.

Stylistic comparisons between authenticated works and those of suggested authorship can be used to identify the author, although this criterion is always conjectural,[59][60] even more so because it is known that Aleijadinho's "typical" style created a school, being continued by a large number of sculptors from Minas Gerais and copied until today by saint-makers in the region.

[61][62] Such a style was described by Silvio de Vasconcellos as having the following traits:[63] As an example, the image on the right illustrates one of the numerous works that have been accepted as his authorship based on stylistic comparison, a Nossa Senhora das Dores, today in the collection of the Museum of Sacred Art of São Paulo.

[64] Beatriz Coelho divided his stylistic evolution into three phases: the first, between 1760 and 1774, when his style was undefined, looking for a characterization; the second, between 1774 and 1790, when he personalized himself and his works were defined by firmness and idealization, and the final one, between 1790 and his death, when stylization reached extremes, far from naturalism, trying to express spirituality and suffering.

[66][67] As Angela Brandão said:[66] "Although the whole system of organization for the performance of mechanic crafts, inherited from Portuguese medieval models, has changed as it adapted to the Brazilian colony, it seems certain that both in Portugal and even more so in Brazil, the rigid division of functions carried out by different officers has never been carefully maintained...

[82] Oral tradition holds that Aleijadinho was also the author of the design for the Church of Saint Francis of Assisi in Ouro Preto, but in relation to it, only his participation as a decorator is documented, creating and executing altarpieces, pulpits, a doorway and a washbasin.

[83] The problems become more complex in the analysis of his contribution to the religious architecture of Minas Gerais when one notices the discrepancy between the design of the Church of Saint Francis of Assisi in São João del-Rei, which was recovered, with the result that is visible today, having undergone several modifications by Francisco de Lima Cerqueira [pt], to the point of being fair to call him co-author of the work.

The scenes are usually arranged in a series of chapels that precede a temple placed on top of a hill or mountain — hence the name Sacro Monte — exactly as is the case with the Sanctuary of Congonhas,[88] erected by Feliciano Mendes in payment of a promise and imitating the model of the homonymous shrine in Braga, Portugal.

Part of the critic attributes this to the incompetence of his group of assistants or the difficulties in handling the chisel generated by his illness, but others are inclined to see an expressive intentionality in them; others understand the distortions as an eminently technical resource destined to compensate for the deformation arising from the low point of view from which the statues are seen, demonstrating that the creator was aware of the problems and demands of the figural representation in perspective.

A differential of the Ouro Preto example is the presence of an additional relief occluding the oculus, where Saint Francis of Assisi appears receiving the stigmata,[78][105] which for Mário de Andrade is among his most exquisite creations, combining remarkable sweetness and realism.

[78][106][107] After a period of relative obscurity after his death, even though it was commented on by several travelers and scholars of the first half of the 19th century such as Auguste de Saint-Hilaire and Richard Burton, sometimes in an unflattering way, Aleijadinho returned to scene with the pioneering biography of Bretas in 1858, already mentioned.

For the modernists in Mário's group, who were engaged in a process of creating a new concept of national identity, knowing Aleijadinho's work was like an inspiring revelation, being accompanied by some illustrious French-speaking theorists, in a period when the Baroque style was very discredited among the intelligentsia in Europe but in Brazil it had become the subject of the moment.

[22][108] Among many similar opinions, Bazin praised him as the "Brazilian Michelangelo",[112] for Carlos Fuentes he was the greatest "poet" of colonial America,[35] Lezama Lima called him "the culmination of the American Baroque",[113] Regis St. Louis and his collaborators give him a prominent place in the history of international art,[114] John Crow considers him one of the most gifted creators of the western hemisphere ever,[115] and João Hansen claims that his works are already beginning to be identified with Brazil alongside samba and football in other countries, having become one of the national icons for foreigners.

[117] Grammont, Gomes Júnior, Chartier, Barretto and others warn against the perennialization of mystifying, romanticized and fanciful views about the Aleijadinho, which tend to obscure his correct contextualization and the clear understanding of his artistic stature and the extent of his originality, from the copious folklore that, since the Vargas Era, both the officials and the people have been creating around his little-known and mysterious figure, elevating him to the level of a national hero.