BLACK CITY: RIO DE JANEIRO IN WORKS OF ART FROM HEITOR DOS PRAZERES

Abstract

Black culture is present in several spaces of the city of Rio de Janeiro, and is therefore a crucial element for the identity and history of its population, as well as for the process of resistance to racism. Heitor dos Prazeres (1898-1966), a visual artist and composer, portrayed the daily life of the city in his paintings, in order to present the other side of Rio de Janeiro, until then invisible, where there was the world of samba and other carnival. Heitor resisted the current aesthetic standard, presenting the houses with varying colors and the flow of people. Their canvases also pointed to the difficult life that women carried when carrying basins and water cans in their heads, and the heavy work carried out by blacks in the trains and in trucking. Thus, the purpose of this article is to present scenes of the city present in the works of Heitor, showing how blacks are displaced from the center towards the periphery, initially occupying the base of the hills, then climbing their slopes. With this, he registered another city, hitherto without visibility and full of social problems and impotent to the status quo.