Words, drawings and digital representation: visual interpretations of the narratives of machado de assis in morro do castelo

Abstract

This article’s purpose is to create a digital graphic reconstitution of Machado de Assis’ literary characters from the narrative “Uma por Outra”, edited in 1897, focusing on the fictional scenario based on the physical relationship between a specific house on the Misericórdia street and houses on "Morro do Castelo", that existed in an urban context and now disappeared. The methodology combines previous studies on the representation with historical digital urban models, responsible for potentialize the documentary information and promoting the points of view of the characters. The article led to finding an approach to using iconography and digital models in order to conclude that the author’s fiction was based on a real site. The main research limitation concerns Castelo Hill disappearance in 1922 and the limited remaining iconographic sources. In addition, research on theoretical studies of representation of the city as a graphic report have taken place. Therefore, the originality of this study deals with interesting literary research and the results and conclusions will serve as reference to further new areas of knowledge about the cities.