A arte do retrato em Os Maias , de Eça de Queirós

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to analyze, in the novel Os Maias, by Eça de Queirós (1845-1900), scenes in which the pictorial portrait of the fictional character is notably given. We are mainly attached to the characters and impressions of their different moments: his vices, virtues, and how the character behaves in the public and in the private, in the sociocultural context of the first three quarters of the 19th century, the period covered by the novel. The fundamental portrait we study is especially that which occurs at the moment when the action stops, and we can capture the painting or the image that transcends the work and puts it on a screen. We focused on the objective and the subjective descriptions for this composition, relying on authors, theorists and critics of the art of portraying, who places us in the genesis of pictorial painting, making the relation between literature and visual arts. Emile Cioran, Ernst H. Gombrich, José-Augusto França, Columbano Bordalo Pinheiro, Campos Matos, Carlos Reis, Irene Vaquinhas, Ofélia Paiva Monteiro, among others, gave us the direction to the main thematic axes: social portrait and gender studies. This research was based on a reading practice valuing the physical body of the literary and historical text, and for this we focused on the novel, which gave us the portrait of the 19th century Portuguese society