Close Information
Description
  • Amaro Francisco, "Hunger and Thirst Made me Leave my Region"
    This beautiful woodblock image depicts a typical scene from Brazil's impoverished rural Northeast where draught and famine have destroyed farmland and livestock, causing a mass migration of people from this region to Brazil's cities in search of better employment opportunities. Poor farmers or sharecroppers pack up their belongings and abandon their land.
    1276,960
    Price On Request
  • Abrão Batista, Touch of the Negress
    1414,960
    Price On Request
  • Abrão Batista, Adam and Eve in the Sertão
    1769,1200
    Price On Request
  • Amaro Francisco, The Ranch
    1284,960
    Price On Request
  • Amaro Francisco, Capoeira
    This woodblock print by cordel artist Amaro Francisco depicts the popular Brazilian martial arts dance Copoeira, an African import during the slave trade, adapted and transformed into a unique Afro-Brazilian dance form. It is nearly always accompanied by traditional Brazilian berimbau music.
    1424,960
    Price On Request
  • Amaro Francisco, The Market
    1364,960
    Price On Request
  • José Costa Leite, Boi Bumba
    1439,930
    Price On Request
  • José Costa Leite, Feast of St. John
    904,640
    Price On Request
  • José Costa Leite, Flesh and Bones of the Sertão
    1201,960
    Price On Request
  • José Costa Leite, The Market of Caico
    1276,960
    Price On Request
  • José Costa Leite, Sertão Festival
    507,360
    Price On Request
  • José Costa Leite, Sertão Wedding
    1207,960
    Price On Request
  • Jose Costa Leite, Street Musicians in Olinda
    957,960
    Price On Request
  • José Costa Leite, Street Musicians in Olinda
    991,960
    Price On Request
  • Abrão Batista, Puppet Theater
    455,616
    Price On Request
  • José Costa Leite, Olinda
    This woodblock print depicts the colonial seaside city Olinda, home town of cordel artist José Costa Leite. Olinda is known for its beautiful colonial buildings in a tropical setting; it has also been a magnet for artists for much of the 20th century.
    640,678
    Price On Request
  • Amaro Francisco, Retirantes (Exodus)
    1404,960
    Price On Request
  • Severino Borges, King of the Sertão
    1436,960
    Price On Request
  • Amaro Francisco, Heaven
    718,960
    Price On Request
  • Amaro Francisco, Boi da Macuca
    705,960
    Price On Request
  • Abrão Batista, Mother of the Moon
    1272,960
    Price On Request
  • Severino Borges, Maracatu
    1371,960
    Price On Request
Show Thumbnails
Show Thumbnails
Exit Stack View
© Beate Echols. FolioLink © Kodexio ™ 2025
Brazil: Cordel Art Prints

 

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

Previous Image
Slide Show
Next Image
Brazil: Cordel Art Prints
Price Information
Full Screen
Sound
share: