A auto-invenção artística nos jornais manuscritos da Casa Pia de Lisboa (1893-1929)

Abstract

The writing of this thesis begins with the description and analysis of twenty-two manuscript journals that were produced, occasionally, between the years of 1893 and 1929 by various students of a Public Welfare Institution, a School under the name Casa Pia of Lisbon. These objects will be presented taking into consideration their thematic and formal affinities with general periodic publications, of the National Press, destined to children and youth, during the crossing over of the XIX century into the XX century, which coincided with the emerging practices and discourses of the Modern School Era. The main purpose of this investigation consists of the demonstration of the idea that the school journals, based on techniques and technologies of both Art and Education, will define a unique genera of school production whose aspect and significance are inseparable of the historical appearance of a new concept of Child: the Pupil, as someone who is capable of freely expressing his personal will and professional ability. This in order for the Pupil to become author of his own life, when inserted in the context of an Institution whose concern was to offer and authorize ways to achieve this goal. Artistic Education, through Drawing and Handicrafts, will be focused on the practises and processes of self-education and self-discipline that were promoted by the Modern School movements, one of which was Scholar Press by Célestin Freinet. Throughout the first decades of the XX century, in Europe, these movements spread the spirit of Juvenile Association (as an ideal model of youth socialization) and School Press (as an effective method of “intuitive” learning) in order to incite the values of autonomy and responsibility, that would best fit the general principles of the Illuminist civilization: “Order and Work”. These values and principles certified the meaning and image of a Democratic School, where everyone was made equal in terms of the right to be assisted and educated, according to their different social condition, character (physical and psychological) and special vocations (artistic and intellectual). The concepts sustained by this thesis are defined through the presentation of the manuscript journals as a material result of artistic practices and processes of Instruction that contributed for the solidification of the pedagogical discourse’s efficiency in Modern Education. The will and vocation for the arts were the master keys of access to a social and professional destiny that the Scholar Institution wished for every pupil to have and, as expected, each pupil desired to have for himself