Africanos, crioulos e mestiçados nas representações iconográficas de Debret e Rugendas (1808-1839) : registros da diversidade e da complexidade históricas

Abstract

This research seeks to understand the iconographic representations of Jean-Baptiste Debret and Johann Moritz Rugendas about Africans, “crioulos” and “mestiçados” - whether they were slaves, freed or freeborns - beyond the simplified, generic and polarized analysis about sociocultural aspects of these groups. The selected images are part of the books Viagem pitoresca e Histórica ao Brasil and Viagem pitoresca através do Brasil, authored, respectively, by Debret and Rugendas. The three volumes of the debretian edition were edited in France, sequentially, in the years 1834, 1835 and 1839. The rugendian work became public between 1827 and 1835. Following this chronology, the present research had as its time frame the period from 1808 to 1839, which includes the arrival of the Portuguese Royal Family in its American colony and the date of publication of the third volume of the French artist's work. From this set of images (watercolors, sketches, drawings, croquis and lithographs) and supported by studies related to slavery and biological and cultural miscegenation, in addition to the history of art – in particular, Erwin Panofsky – it was seen that Africans and their descendants registered by the two traveling artists lived in a complex, dynamic and diverse urban environment. In that context, relations were marked by violence, agreements and solidarity between individuals of “qualities” and different legal conditions. From this perspective, the images bequeathed by Debret and Rugendas allowed a more in-depth reading of the “other” and perceiving less explicit dimensions about these men and women brought by force, from across the Atlantic and those born here.