Negro Art in Brazil

Abstract

In this article, first published in 1949, the Brazilian medical graduate and social psychologist Arthur Ramos de Araújo Pereira investigates the broad impact of Western African art on European and Latin American cultures, and in particular the impact of African sculpture in Brazil. He argues against the easy assumption of the white élites that the black population, forcibly sold into slavery in Brazil, was too “primitive” to nurture religiosity, art, or culture worthy of the name. On the basis of earlier writings on African art by scholars such as Leo Frobenius, Andrew Lang, Marshall Herskovits, and Raimundo Nina Rodrigues, Ramos analyzes the ritual significance of Afro-Brazilian idols and magical artifacts in relation both to their source cultures in Africa and to the host culture in Brazil.