Retrato falado:: as meninas mortas

Abstract

This essay compares a painting (1850) to a novel (1954), both entitled A menina morta. The author of the first is unknown and its title was attributed; the novel was written by Cornélio Penna, inspired by the stories of his own family and by that painting depicting his maternal aunt who died in her childhood. There is a kind of intersection between one and the other, for if the novel is informed by the painting, those who know about this fact cannot see/read one without the other. Such considerations are even more relevant because the portrait is present in the novel. As a ghost, in the sense used by Didi-Huberman in A pintura encarnada (2012), it touches us. And like a ghost, the picture appears, disappears and reappears. It makes itself visible to become invisible, while remaining present in its absence. It is precisely such a phantasmatic aspect that we are interested in addressing here.