O Pano de Boca do Teatro Santa Izabel em Diamantina: hibridação cultural no Brasil Imperial

Abstract

The curtain of the Santa Izabel Theatre in Diamantina (kept in the Diamante Museum), has a painting done in the year 1841, by Estanislau Antônio de Miranda, born in 1799 and son of the well-known painter Caetano Luiz de Miranda. This work proposes an iconological analysis of the figures painted there, from the identification of their possible iconographic bases, approaching them from the point of view of cultural hybridization. Among figures from Greek mythology framed by a quadrature structure that provides a false depth of spaces, there are national and regional elements linked to diamond mining, a key economic activity in Diamantina. Multiple and complex elements refer to an intricate reality that goes from the generic allegory of exaltation to the Empire, to moral warnings and references to both mining and arts.