Décio Villares

Décio Rodrigues Villares (1 December 1851 – 21 June 1931) was a Brazilian painter, sculptor, caricaturist, and graphic designer. He is best known for helping to design the blue disc on the flag of Brazil and his designs for the monument honoring Júlio de Castilhos.

Biography His father, José Rodrigues Villares, was a Lieutenant Colonel, a member of the Nova Iguaçu city council, and a participant in the Liberal rebellions of 1842. Although his family was not wealthy, they were politically connected (his uncle, Manoel Rodrigues Villares (1804-1878), served as a Minister of the Supreme Federal Court), so he was able to gain entrance to the Colégio Pedro II and the Academia Imperial de Belas Artes. There, he studied with Victor Meirelles and Pedro Américo.

In 1870, he began providing caricatures for the satirical magazine, Comédia Social, published by Américo and his younger brother, , who was also a student there at that time. For unknown reasons, he was frequently absent from his classes, did not participate in exhibitions and did not compete for the travel scholarship. Eventually, he dropped out. For the next nine years, he travelled, initially (1872) to Paris.

There, he studied in the workshops of Alexandre Cabanel. In 1874, he was awarded a gold medal at the Salon for his painting of Paolo Malatesta and Francesca da Rimini, which was praised by the notoriously difficult-to-please art critic. During that period, he was first exposed to the positivist philosophy of Auguste Comte and abandoned Catholicism. This would result in his being rejected for a teaching position at the Académie des Beaux-Arts. In 1887, he and Almeida Júnior were chosen to replace Victor Meirelles in the history painting department at the Academia Imperial, but they never did. Three years later, he and De Figueiredo were part of a group that presented a proposal for a new method of teaching that would emphasize the master/apprentice relationship and abolish the Academia. When he died, in 1931, she burned down his studio.

Much of his work was funded by the Positivist Church; including a medallion, to be placed on the grave of Dante Alighieri in Ravenna, and a monument to Benjamin Constant. Although he has often received little credit, he participated in the creation of the Brazilian flag, conceived by Raimundo Teixeira Mendes (a member of the Positivist Church); helping to design the blue disc and the placement of the words "Ordem e Progresso". He also painted the prototype that was used by the seamstresses who made the first flags. The painting was stolen in 2010 and has not been recovered.

He may have served as the inspiration for Julião Vilela, a character in Mocidade Morta, a novel by the art critic, Gonzaga Duque, who felt that Villares made poor aesthetic choices and never lived up to his potential.