Historical Context
After the independence of Brazil from Portugal in 1822, a heavy nationalism spread through the Brazilian people. Inspired by this, poets and writers began to search for an entity that could represent and personify the newly-created Brazilian nation. Since there was no Middle Ages in Brazil, it could not be the knight, as in the European chivalric romances; it could not be the Portuguese man either, since Brazilians still held resentment for the years of colonization; it could not be the black man either, since the mentality of the time did not allow it. Influenced by Enlightenment ideals, especially works by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the "noble savage" myth, the authors chose the Brazilian Indian to represent the new nation.
Read more about this topic: Indianism (arts)
Famous quotes containing the words historical and/or context:
“In public buildings set aside for the care and maintenance of the goods of the middle ages, a staff of civil service art attendants praise all the dead, irrelevant scribblings and scrawlings that, at best, have only historical interest for idiots and layabouts.”
—George Grosz (1893–1959)
“Among the most valuable but least appreciated experiences parenthood can provide are the opportunities it offers for exploring, reliving, and resolving one’s own childhood problems in the context of one’s relation to one’s child.”
—Bruno Bettelheim (20th century)