Afro-Brazilians and Visual Arts

Published in 1968, the text "Afro-Brazilians and Visual Arts" analyzes the presence of Black artists in the Brazilian visual arts from the colonial period to the 1960s. In its first part, Clarival do Prado Valladares argues that socio-economic reasons rather than racial ones limited the presence and visibility of Black artists in the Brazilian art scene. According to him, that tendency became stronger from the end of the nineteenth century, when art became a prestige characteristic of a higher socio-economic class. To reinforce his argument, Valladares emphasizes the role of Black artists in the artistic production for churches in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, before Brazilian society experienced profound changes in its ethnic complexion following the end of slavery, with resulting disadvantages for Black people. Valladares focuses on "Black art" in the text’s second part, highlighting communicability as its fundamental characteristic. Through examples, he shows how artists from different ethnic backgrounds can express African culture, while there are also Black artists who do not address blackness in their works.