Fascination, by Pedro Peres: the representation of racial inequality in childhood in the post-abolition art scene

• Grant number: 19/19511-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: February 01, 2020
• End date: January 31, 2021
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts - Art Fundamentals and Criticism
• Principal Investigator: Elaine Cristina Dias
• Grantee: Nathalia Azevedo de Paula
• Host Institution: Escola de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (EFLCH). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Guarulhos. Guarulhos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This project has as object of study the work Fascination, dated 1904, by the painter Pedro José Pinto Peres and preserved in the collection of the Pinacoteca of the State of São Paulo since 2005. On it, a black girl and a white doll are portrayed without any kind of physical interaction, in a counterpoint where their features and gestures are the vectors that suggest intrinsic dialogue on the scene. Through the analysis of this genre painting, in parallel with others that surround the period, it seeks the artistic study of the representations of childhood and the social and racial relations built between the portrayed. The investigation of the importance of artists and their works in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in terms of their posture as trainers and/or precursors of ideas, opinions, and positions will allow it to understand the role of art in portraying this social issue in the early years of the republic, considering, above all, the possible references of foreign artists and visual models about gender painting, black representation and, especially, childhood. Therefore, it aims to establish a relationship between the art propagated in the period and the post-abolitionist Brazilian society, seeking from the artistic and aesthetic elements and their respective analyzes, the historical and social understandings - also necessary for a complete observation and a broad understanding of the present work under study.