ICONOGRAPHY

 

Below you will find drawings and paintings from 1822 until 1981.
These drawings permit us to have a glimpse on the type of capoeira practiced at different periods, and at the context where it happened.
Sometimes we are also able to see how certain artists, scholars, writers and capoeiristas tried, through drawings and articles in magazines and newspapers, to give capoeira a certain "face" which they found more suitable at their time:

    - stressing capoeira as a "fight";

    - or as something of "roots and traditions", etc.
 

    "Negros lutando, Brazil" (Negroes fighting, Brazil)

    Augustus Earle, 1822

    Earle painted a watercolour where one slave violently kicks another with a blow known as benção in our days.
Someone else who signs himself as A.P.D.G., in 1826, describes how a slave defended himself, and attacked two whites using kicks: "The negro hit him with the sole of his foot with such force and skill that he killed him" (A.P.D.G., Sketches of Portuguese life, manners, costumes, and character, London, 1826).
Earle's watercolour and A.P.D.G.'s text describe a very violent form of capoeira (and do not mention the berimbau, capoeira's main musical instrument).  We might reach the conclusion that "the oldest known capoeira" was something extremely violent, the same way that Rio de Janeiro's maltas (gangs) of capoeira (at the end of the 1800s) was also very violent.

Notwithstanding this point of view, Ferdinand J. Dennis (Histoire et descrption du Brésil, Paris, F. Didot frères, 1839, p.147) describes capoeira as a "mock combat" (but also does not mention the berimbau).

 

    "Negros Volteadores"

    DEBRET. Voyage pittoresque et historique au Brésil. Paris: Didot Firmin et Fréres, 1824. 

    The "Negros Volteadores" (Acrobatic Negroes) did their jumps and sumersaults in front of the funeral parade of important personalities of Brasil's black community.
Although capoeira, during the 1800s, did not englobe the aú and other jumps and acrobatic movements we see today, these African acrobatic movements already were present and were practiced by certain slaves in Brasil. 
 
 

    Escravo velho tocando berimbau (Old slave playing berimbau)

    DEBRET. Voyage pittoresque et historique au Brésil. Paris: Didot Firmin et Fréres, 1824.

    These drawings by Debret  ("Negros Volteadores" and "Escravo velho tocando berimbau") shows us that the acrobatics and the berimbau already were present in Brasil during the early 1800s notwithstanding that they did not belong to the capoeira context (as we willo see in the next drawing by Rugendas). 

    We might say the same thing concerning kicks such as seen in Earle's 1822 watercolour, Negros Lutando, Brazil (Negroes fighting, Brazil).

    But 100 years later, around 1920, these items had already been absorbed by Salvador's capoeira, such as described by mestre Noronha when he talks about  "os bambas da era de 1922" (the 'guys' from the 1922 era) (O ABC da capoeira angola, os manuscritos de mestre Noronha, Brasília, DEFER CIDOCA/DF, 1993), whom Noronha knew when he was a kid in 1922. 
 
 

 

    "Jogar Capüera ou Dance de la Guerre" (To play capoeira or war dance)

    RUGENDAS, J.M. Voyage pittoresque et historique dans le Brasil. Paris: Engelmann et Cie, Paris, 1834.

    This is perhaps the best known capoeira drawing and description of the early 1800s by the German artist Rugendas in his first stay in Brasil (1822-1825).  The drawing (among many others) was done in Rio de Janeiro and the book came out first in Paris in 1834/1835.
Rugendas also describes the "game":

"... the negroes have still another warrior's game even more violent (than the games he had described before): capüera.  Two champions throw themselves, one against the other, trying two hit one another's chest with a head but as to throw him on the floor.  The attacks are avoided with jumps to the sides and bodyplay equaly skilfull.  But throwing themselves against the other similar to goats, it hapens sometimes to strongly hit head against head and this makes, many times, the game to degenerate into fighting and that the knifes come into  play bloodying the game"

    As we once more see, violence is present in the game.
And, besides that, Rugendas does not mention the berimbau as part of capoeira (in the drawing we only see an atabaque drum).  Rugendas doesn't mention kicks, although they were used by certain slaves when fighting (as we saw in Earle's 1822 watecolour).  And he also does not mention acrobatics (as in Debret's 1824 "old slave playing berimbau").
    We might conclude that these items were absorbed by capoeira between 1834 and 1922 (when they all are present in Noronha's description).
 
 

    METER O ANDANTE

    Kalixto, 1906.  
 

     A LAMPARINA

    Kalixto, 1906.
 

    O CALÇO OU A RASTEIRA

    Kalixto, 1906.

    In 1906, L.C. (probably the writer Lima Campos) wrote an article in the sophisticated magazine Kosmos, Revista Artística, Scientífica e Literária (Rio de Janeiro, nº3, march/1906).  He presented capoeira as a "national sport" with a "mestizzo" background, stressing the defensive strategies of capoeira, as well as the mocking atitude of it's Rio de Janeiro players.
    This article came with some beautifull drawings from Kalixto (Calixto Cordeiro).
 
 
 

 

    Cover of the book "Gymnástica Nacional (Capoeiragem) Methodizada e Regrada" (National Gymnastic, capoeiragem with rules and method), by Anibal Burlamaqui,  1928. 

    Burlamaqui is part of the group of writers and "intelectuals" who tried to take capoeira from it's underground and ilegal context by transforming it into a "sport", or even better, into the"Brazilian National Fight" with rules, competitions, judges, similar to Judo in Japan, Box in England, and Savate in  France.

    In order to do this they thought it was necessary to "delete", or at least to "make it Brazilian" and to "whiten" capoeira's African roots.  That is why they stress som much it's (in their way of seeing it) "mestizzo background", similar to what they said (with a lot of reason) to hapen with Brazilian culture.  The "mestizzo", the "mulato", the "creole", would also be the "ideal capoeira player" (and not necessarily the "black" ones).

    It is important to understand that although Brazil's culture, and the majority of Brazilian, have African/(Brazilian) Indian/Portuguese  (and others as well) roots, the "theory of mestiçagem" (mestizzo, mixed blood and culture), wich predicts this caracteristic, is many  times used to hide Brazilian racism: because if we are of "mixed blood" then obviously "racism would not exist".
 
 
 
 

 

    Drawing on the article "Nosso Jogo" (Our Game) that came out in a magazine, EdFex (Rio de Janeiro, 1935), with a sequence of drawings showing some movements used by the capoeiras of those times:  "pantana de esquiva" and "pantana de cócoras".

    These last two  (Burlamaqui's book, 1928; and EdFex, 1935) are part of Rio de Janeiro's group of "intelectuals" who wanted to install capoeira as the true and only "Brazilian National Fight" in the begginings of the 1900s.  Notwithstanding that, at those times, capoeira's practice was forbiden by law (from 1890  to the 1930s). 
 

    Vôo-do-morcego (the bat's flight) pictured in the book "Capoeiragem, a arte da defesa pessoal brasileira" (Capoeiragem, the Brazilian art of self-defense), by Lamartine Pereira da Costa.  Later on this books was published with a certain success for it's time under the title "Capoeira sem mestre" (Capoeira without a mestre) (Rio de Janeiro, Tecnoprint, circa 1960).

    Lamartine is another one who belong to the group who wants to install capoeira as the true and only "Brazilian National Fight" cuting capoeira off from it's black roots and underground and bohemian context.  Lamartine was an  officer at the Brazilian Navy as well as Phisical Education and self-defense teacher. 

 

    Drawings by the well known artist Carybé (born in Urugai but who lived and worked in Salvador, in the state of Bahia) inspired on the capoeira practiced in the roda held by mestre Waldemar  da Paixão at the neighbourhood of Liberdade, in Salvador, circa 1960.

    In oposition to Rio de Janeiro's intent to install the "National Brazilian Fight", with it's sport and competition context, we see Carybé showing capoeira as a "game", an "art", "folclore", with it's ritual and music and ludic aspects.  Another known artist who is also part of this group (sharing the same aproach to capoeira ), from Salvador (capital of the state of Bahia), is the well known Brazilian writer Jorge Amado. 
 

 

    Rasteira e benção; and banda de frente; drawings on the leaflet that came together with the LP record  "Curso de Capoeira Regional", by mestre Bimba (Salvador, JS Discos, circa 1960). 

 

    Drawing by Nestor Capoeira on a photo that came with the leaflet of Traíra's and Cobrinha Verde's LP record, circa 1960.

    Nestor Capoeira, as the "hero" of the film  "Cordão de Ouro" (dir.  A.C.Fontoura, Embrafilmes, 1979).

    This photo became famous among capoeira players around 1980 because it simbolized the growing status and succes of a new generation of young players (around 35  years old at that time), almost all strongly influenced by mestre Bimba's regional, who had taken over the "power" and the leadership (from the older generation which was still active) of the capoeira comunity.

    Among these, the best  known became the Senzala Group of Rio de Janeiro, Acordeon (graduated by mestre Bimba, in Salvador) who taught in the city of São Paulo and then stablished himsel in San Francisco (USA, circa 1980), Suassuna who came from the city of Itabuna (in the state of Bahia) and became a basic figure in São Paulo's (Brazil's biggest and richest city) and Brazil's capoeira. 
 

    Cruz, drawing by Sillas de Oliveira for the first edition of "Capoeira, o Pequeno Manual do Jogador", by Nestor Capoeira (Rio de Janeiro, Ed. Ground, 1981;  rev. ed. by Record, 1998).

    This book became "something" (in what concerns capoeira books): it was later published in France, Germany, Holand, Finland, Poland, Danmark and the US (by North Atlantic Books, Berkely, CA, who has sold over 30,000 of Nestor Capoeira's books in English). 

PHOTOS