Cavalry as world image: manu militari and ethical-political ambivalences

Abstract

This paper circumscribes aspects of significant complexity present in a photograph that, in its circulation, spanned a century and a half, accumulating sediments from Brazilian public life. By connecting image and imagery, the photograph of the eight knights became a symbolic object. Amidst the ambivalence to which it belongs, it was established as a founding image that, stemming from the family, social and political order, gives precedence to militarism and perceives it as an organizing power in Brazilian republican life.

Keywords image; photography; imaginary; militarism; cavalry