Today´s post registers the presence of a bas-relief located at the main façade of the Colégio Estadual Paulo de Frontin, whose new building was inaugurated on December 10th, 1929.
Well preserved till then, the façade of Professional School Paulo de Frontin (Escola Profissional Paulo de Frontin) can be seen below, in a photo taken from Fernando de Azevedo´s book A Cultura Brasileira (The Brazilian Culture). The color image, down below, was captured in March 2014.
The address is 399, Barão de Ubá Street, in Rio Comprido.
By the simple analysis of the bas-relief it is promptly possible to deduce that we are in front of a professional education institution, like several others that arised in Rio under the education system reform conducted by Professor Fernando de Azevedo in 1928. And more: an education institution for women!
Let´s take a closer look to the composition, which carries with it some formal naivety.
Seven figures appear in the bas-relief, organized quite symmetrically: five female figures framed by two male ones.
The central woman and the two men are allegorical figures. They carry the classical attributes of Knowledge and Victory – a victory conquered by the efforts of Education: she carries a torch and each of them carries a laurel wreath.
The four remainder women – two standing and two on their knees – carry attributes that allude to the main activities undertaken in the institution: a brush, a loom, a basket and a lithographic matrix?
