Portinari's Drawings of Hans Staden: Oblivion and Memory of the Colonial Past

Abstract

This article explores the production and transmission of illustrations Candido Portinari made for a North-American edition of Hans Staden's book on sixteenth-century Brazil. Made in 1941, the drawings fell into oblivion for almost sixty years, until their posthumous publication in 1998 in Brazil. The article argues that the destiny of the drawings is symptomatic for the articulation of the cultural memory of the colonial past in Brazil. Based upon the analysis of their critical reception and visual repertoire, it suggests that the drawings diverge from traditional representations of the death of indigenous people by challenging the temporality underlying the national framework of colonial memory