"In an attempt to understand the nature of Brazilian art, Naves has written essays on five artists - Debret, Guignard, Volpi, Segall, and Amilcar de Castro. With very few exceptions, Brazilian art has always been shy and ambivalent in its depictions. The author attributes this ambivalence to a poorly defined sociability, as shown through the country's history. In his own essays, Naves is not ambivalent; indeed, his insights are well articulated, even when they are polemical. An original contribution to the interpretation of the history of Brazilian art"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.