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Reflexão
Anchieta and the Beasts
In this work by Benedito Calixto, the main character is the Jesuit priest José de Anchieta.
The image seems simple and straightforward - it works as a work of admiration for the figure of Anchieta, while informing us about the main ideas of the time: the ‘need’ to evangelise ‘the beasts’.
In the middle of the Amazon jungle, the figure of the priest, with a Bible in one hand and a raised cross in the other, becomes the centre of the scene. To the left, below, a jaguar stares at him with fear and fixation, something visible in the way it bends down before the human, looking at him intently.
The relationship between the two figures clearly presents the idea of the ‘savage’ submitting to the ‘divine’ representation and order, represented by the priest. Here, faith is once again used as an instrument to control the mind, body and land. The jaguar represents not only the wild animals that the colonisers found in these territories, but the colonised themselves, seen as ‘wild’ by the Western coloniser. The link between the ‘colonised’ and the ‘savage’ is deliberate and seeks to dehumanise the latter in order to justify colonisation, forced evangelisation or slavery.
This and similar images were intended to disseminate these ideas and construct an imaginary in which colonisation was justified through the ‘civilising mission’ - a racist, hierarchical and binary visuality based on colonial sanitation.