A dissertação examina, a partir de um enfoque multidisciplinar que contempla aspectos estéticos, históricos e antropológicos, as imagens de negros de ganho realizadas por Christiano Jr. em cerca de 1865 no Rio de Janeiro. O objetivo é sublinhar seu caráter contraditório quando colocadas em perspectiva de longa duração. Mesmo sem romper com os padrões estéticos da época, as fotografias de Christiano Jr. introduzem elementos que representam uma diferenciação, uma vez que subvertem certos elementos estruturais da imagem do negro, temáticos e compositivos, quebrando o código de silêncio, ocultamento e disfarce que marca a relação da sociedade brasileira com o tema da escravidão. O trabalho desdobra-se em três movimentos. O primeiro capítulo apresenta uma análise detalhada do trabalho de Christiano Jr., ressaltando sua trajetória e o sistema de consumo e circulação em que suas fotografias se inserem. O segundo caracteriza os padrões tradicionais de representação da figura do negro e das camadas populares estabelecendo relações entre esses gêneros consolidados e as fotografias de Christiano Jr. O último capítulo sublinha uma espécie de fissura no rígido código de representação iconográfica do escravo e propõe que o trabalho do fotógrafo açoriano seja lido não mais como um documento neutro sobre os usos e costumes da época ou apenas como reiteração de um olhar preconceituoso, mas como registro de uma relação complexa entre o fotógrafo e seus modelos, como um elemento constitutivo - e, portanto, carregado de sentidos, mesmo que paradoxais - daquela sociedade que se via às voltas com a crise aguda do regime escravagista. / The aim of this work is to examine, from a multidisciplinary approach (aesthetic, historical and anthropological), images of black slaves and black wage earners made by the Azorean photographer Christiano Jr. in mid of the 1860\'s in Rio de Janeiro. The purpose is to emphasize their contradictory character when placed in a long-term perspective. Even without breaking with the aesthetic standards of the period, the pictures of Christiano Jr. introduce elements that represent a differentiation as they subvert certain thematic and compositional structural aspects of images of black labors, thus breaking the code of silence, concealment and disguise that characterizes the relationship between the Brazilian society and the system of slavery. The work develops in three movements. The first chapter presents a detailed analysis of the work of Christiano Jr. highlighting his career and the system of consumption and circulation of his images. The second features the traditional patterns of representation of the figure of the black working classes relating them with the pictures of Christiano Jr. The last chapter stresses a kind of fissure in the strict code of the iconographic representation of the slaves and proposes that the work of the azorean photographer be read not as a neutral document about the uses and customs of the time or only as a reiteration of a biased look, but as a record of a complex relationship between the photographer and his models as a constituent component - therefore charged with meaning - of a society that was itself grappling in an acute crisis of the slavery regime.

A dissertação examina, a partir de um enfoque multidisciplinar que contempla aspectos estéticos, históricos e antropológicos, as imagens de negros de ganho realizadas por Christiano Jr. em cerca de 1865 no Rio de Janeiro. O objetivo é sublinhar seu caráter contraditório quando colocadas em perspectiva de longa duração. Mesmo sem romper com os padrões estéticos da época, as fotografias de Christiano Jr. introduzem elementos que representam uma diferenciação, uma vez que subvertem certos elementos estruturais da imagem do negro, temáticos e compositivos, quebrando o código de silêncio, ocultamento e disfarce que marca a relação da sociedade brasileira com o tema da escravidão. O trabalho desdobra-se em três movimentos. O primeiro capítulo apresenta uma análise detalhada do trabalho de Christiano Jr., ressaltando sua trajetória e o sistema de consumo e circulação em que suas fotografias se inserem. O segundo caracteriza os padrões tradicionais de representação da figura do negro e das camadas populares estabelecendo relações entre esses gêneros consolidados e as fotografias de Christiano Jr. O último capítulo sublinha uma espécie de fissura no rígido código de representação iconográfica do escravo e propõe que o trabalho do fotógrafo açoriano seja lido não mais como um documento neutro sobre os usos e costumes da época ou apenas como reiteração de um olhar preconceituoso, mas como registro de uma relação complexa entre o fotógrafo e seus modelos, como um elemento constitutivo - e, portanto, carregado de sentidos, mesmo que paradoxais - daquela sociedade que se via às voltas com a crise aguda do regime escravagista. / The aim of this work is to examine, from a multidisciplinary approach (aesthetic, historical and anthropological), images of black slaves and black wage earners made by the Azorean photographer Christiano Jr. in mid of the 1860\'s in Rio de Janeiro. The purpose is to emphasize their contradictory character when placed in a long-term perspective. Even without breaking with the aesthetic standards of the period, the pictures of Christiano Jr. introduce elements that represent a differentiation as they subvert certain thematic and compositional structural aspects of images of black labors, thus breaking the code of silence, concealment and disguise that characterizes the relationship between the Brazilian society and the system of slavery. The work develops in three movements. The first chapter presents a detailed analysis of the work of Christiano Jr. highlighting his career and the system of consumption and circulation of his images. The second features the traditional patterns of representation of the figure of the black working classes relating them with the pictures of Christiano Jr. The last chapter stresses a kind of fissure in the strict code of the iconographic representation of the slaves and proposes that the work of the azorean photographer be read not as a neutral document about the uses and customs of the time or only as a reiteration of a biased look, but as a record of a complex relationship between the photographer and his models as a constituent component - therefore charged with meaning - of a society that was itself grappling in an acute crisis of the slavery regime.

While the role of photography in enforcing hegemonic ideologies has been amply studied, this thesis addresses the under-researched topic of how photography undermined dominant narratives in specific historical circumstances. I argue that, in the later part of the long nineteenth century, photographs were used to represent the natural world in contexts where their functions were uncertain and their capacities not clearly defined, and that these hesitations allowed for the expression of resistances to dominant social attitudes towards nature. I analyse how these divergences were articulated through three independent case studies, each addressing a corpus of photographs which has been marginalised in scholarly discourse. The case studies all concern photographs of vegetation. The first one discusses photographs produced around Fontainebleau during the Second French Empire, commonly understood as auxiliary materials for Barbizon painters, and argues that they were in fact autonomous representations, reflecting marginal modes of experiencing nature which resisted its prevailing construction as spectacle. The second case study examines a photographic series depicting Amazonian vegetation, published between 1900 and 1906, and shows how, in attempting to satisfy conflicting ideological demands, these photographs undermined the hierarchies enforced upon the natural world by colonial science. The third case study analyses photographs from an early twentieth-century environmentalist treatise, and demonstrates how, while the author's discourse seemingly complied with conventional attitudes towards nature, the photographs instituted an ethical stance opposed to early conservation's aesthetic focus and anthropocentrism. Throughout the case studies, I argue that the photographs were consubstantial to the emergence of these resistances; that dissenting representations stemmed from a tension between their producers' lived experience and the ideological frameworks which informed each context; and that this process engendered remarkable formal innovations, which are not usually associated to non-artistic images. I contend that radical renewals of visual expression occur in all representational contexts, as image producers adapt their tools or forge new ones according to circumstances, and that more attention must be paid to such visual innovations outside the field of artistic production.