A Delicate Crime: Talking to Infinity: A Portrait of a Horse

Abstract

A crime was committed: Iô Williãozinho dared to take a photo of Bio’s white horse, without notice not even permission. In “Retrato de cavalo” (“Portrait of a horse”), from the book Tutaméia, the stimulating indetermination of Guimarães Rosa’s writing establishes a parallel between a horse and his portrait, from the contradictory feelings of his owner, who finds a crime that click. There’s a portrait, image taken illicitly from his owner: writing, representation. We also have a written narrative of the portrait, representation of the representation. This communication intends to show how Guimarães Rosa manipulates the ambiguities of the literary language, taking it besides the limits of representation, exploring its fascination, its knowledge that is far from the act of understanding. The horse and its portrait makes us think about literature, on its real excess that composes its lie. On writing the horse and its portrait, the text does not manage to fix any truth, only runaway images that compose re-chapters: there is always a writing over the other, without determining where the true thing is, where there is what denies it, sending the glance to the kingdom of the fascination, where the image loses the value of signification to be made pure passion of the indetermination, of the indifference.