"Manaus era uma cidade baixa que você via de cima": um estudo sobre as obras de Sérgio Cardoso nos períodos de 1970 e 1980

Abstract

This research, under a qualitative approach, aims to analyze, through Iconography and Iconology, the works of art from the 1970’s and 1980’s by the Amazonian artist, playwright, and writer Sérgio Vieira Cardoso, who is also an immortal member of the Academia Amazonense de Letras. To this end, we will trace a revival through bibliographic, historical, and sociological research on the aspects of images that converge with events from the 19th to the 20th century, including the rubber boom period and the emergence of the Manaus Free Trade Zone. The goal is to identify the relationships between art, especially with sociology, creating an interdisciplinary dialogue to understand the reasons behind the construction and conception of the works of the artist under study. For this purpose, semi-structured interviews provided us with insights into the motivations behind his artistic representations. Additionally, it was necessary to explore the artist's biography through documentary research and remote and in-person interviews, which helped reconstruct Sérgio Cardoso's life trajectory. These aspects were analyzed from the perspective of the sociology of art, as proposed by Pierre Bourdieu, who defines habitus, capital, and field. In this sense, the iconography and iconology of Panofsky (1991) grounded the epistemological approach, serving as a stage for technical analysis through description, conceptualization, and interpretation of images. We structured the research into three stages: the contexts of the Brazilian Amazon from the 19th to the 20th century, the artist's biography from the 1950’s to the 1980’s, and the artist's creations, analyzed critically and interpretively through the stages of analysis proposed by Erwin Panofsky: description, narratives, and signification. This research contributes to the understanding of contemporary art in Amazonas, particularly to the bibliographic collections on the subject, valuing social and historical contexts, and especially the importance of images, the artist, and the history of art in Amazonas.