Brazil: Cordel Art Prints | 22 Images

 

More works than shown here may be available. 

 

Throughout Brazil's poor Northeast ("Sertão"), itinerant peddlers sell home-made illustrated chapbooks addressing popular themes, folktales and legends. This unique art form - "Literatura de Cordel" (string literature) - consists of written verses and woodblock prints illustrating the rhymed stories. Traditionally, the "cordel" booklets were sold at country fairs or popular rural markets where they hung from a piece of string or clothesline. These long, narrative poems with their woodcut illustrations on the cover, were sung out loud to a mostly illiterate rural population. The traditional themes (romances, fantastic stories, animal fables, religious traditions) and themes based on current events, famous people or politicians, can be hilarious, romantic, satirical, and even racy. These days cordel booklets are also sold in Brazil’s big cities where much of the rural population of the Sertão (outback) has migrated. At the same time, woodblock prints illustrating the booklets have been produced in larger formats and are sold separately, often to collectors. On rare occasions the woodblocks themselves are sold.

 

Please see the works by Brazil's most famous cordel artist J. Borges, in a separate portfolio.

 

More information and pricing: be.echols@gmail.com

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Amaro Francisco, "Hunger and Thirst Made me Leave my Region"
Amaro Francisco, "Hunger and Thirst Made me Leave my Region"
Abrão Batista, Touch of the Negress
Abrão Batista, Touch of the Negress
Abrão Batista, Adam and Eve in the Sertão
Abrão Batista, Adam and Eve in the Sertão
Amaro Francisco, The Ranch
Amaro Francisco, The Ranch
Amaro Francisco, Capoeira
Amaro Francisco, Capoeira
Amaro Francisco, The Market
Amaro Francisco, The Market
José Costa Leite, Boi Bumba
José Costa Leite, Boi Bumba
José Costa Leite, Feast of St. John
José Costa Leite, Feast of St. John
José Costa Leite, Flesh and Bones of the Sertão
José Costa Leite, Flesh and Bones of the Sertão
José Costa Leite, The Market of Caico
José Costa Leite, The Market of Caico
José Costa Leite, Sertão Festival
José Costa Leite, Sertão Festival
José Costa Leite, Sertão Wedding
José Costa Leite, Sertão Wedding
Jose Costa Leite, Street Musicians in Olinda
Jose Costa Leite, Street Musicians in Olinda
José Costa Leite, Street Musicians in Olinda
José Costa Leite, Street Musicians in Olinda
Abrão Batista, Puppet Theater
Abrão Batista, Puppet Theater
José Costa Leite, Olinda
José Costa Leite, Olinda
Amaro Francisco, Retirantes (Exodus)
Amaro Francisco, Retirantes (Exodus)
Severino Borges, King of the Sertão
Severino Borges, King of the Sertão
Amaro Francisco, Heaven
Amaro Francisco, Heaven
Amaro Francisco, Boi da Macuca
Amaro Francisco, Boi da Macuca
Abrão Batista, Mother of the Moon
Abrão Batista, Mother of the Moon
Severino Borges, Maracatu
Severino Borges, Maracatu