Do “Malandro Guitarrista” ao “Maestro Mesquita” – um ensaio sobre representação racial na iconografia musical de Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro (1875–78)

Abstract

This article presents a music-iconographic investigation of the illustrations of Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro (1846–1905), one of the greatest Portuguese caricaturists of the nineteenth century. It focuses on the three years Bordalo spent in Rio de Janeiro, between 1875 and 1878, and analyzes the racial representations in his work of this period. My discussion covers Bordalo’s account of his journey from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, the character type of the popular Black guitar player, and the depiction of an important Black Brazilian composer of the time, Henrique Alves de Mesquita (1830–1906). The results of this study highlight the tensions involved in defining a Brazilian national music during the late nineteenth century, amid the emergence of abolitionist movements, the increasing importance of Afro-descendants in the development of Brazilian urban music, and the debates over the place of Afro-descendants in national culture. The work of Erwin Panofsky and Tilman Seebass provide essential theoretical and methodological frameworks for the iconographic analyses in this article, while that of Marta Abreu and Antônio Augusto guide my reflections on the importance of Afro-descendants in Brazilian music at the end of the nineteenth century.