This is a vibrant oil painting by Maria Auxiliadora da Silva. Her paintings teem with joy and movement, documenting the daily lives of Afro-Brazilian people. This painting captures an Afro-Brazilian religion named Umbanda. Umbanda blends Indigenous, African and European religions. It also shares some similarities with an earlier religion, Candomblé, developed by enslaved West Africans on plantations in Brazil.
The artist painted this work in 1968, but the scene recalls enslaved Africans centuries before. They survived and resisted by using spiritual healing, singing and dancing. The ritual takes place in an Umbandan temple named terreiro. The woman is a priestess named ialorixá and her dress has detailed stitching. The artist learned embroidery from her mother and later worked as a seamstress, and the ialorixá’s clothing is a reflection of her skill.
Next to the man with arms raised in devotion is a black pentagram star symbolising harmony of the five elements: fire, earth, water, air and spirit. At the back you can see three religious figures. In the past, enslaved Africans wanted to carry on practising their religion on the plantations, but enslavers forced them to submit to the Roman Catholic religion. So they hid their religion in plain sight by using Roman Catholic saints to embody West African deities named orixá.
The tallest figure, with four arrows and bleeding wounds, is the Roman Catholic Saint Sebastian. But in the Umbanda religion it is known as Oxóssi, the orixá of hunting and forests. The figure with bloody sores is Saint Lazarus, or Obaluaê, the orixá of health and healing. The figure in the middle is Afro-Brazilian Preto Velho, a wise spirit of enslaved Africans.
Under the altar you can see another figure in the curtains. This is the Indigenous spirit Cabocla Flexeira, known for her knowledge of plants and for protecting against negative energies. In the middle of the painting two drummers set the beat, their hands rebounding up from sacred atabaqué drums. On the wall, a tree sways in the wind. It could be a window to the outside, or a framed painting. The artist is blurring inside and outside, signalling the importance of the natural environment in Umbanda, no matter where you live.