As I was listening to the videos, namely on Realism, I imediatelly related to our portuguese painter José Malhoa, who was born in late 19th century.

One of his paintings (1910) turned into an icon of portuguese art, though at the time it caused much criticism. It's a sociological portrait of a marginal society. It's called Fado, the national song, and depicts a prostitute and her pimp, a bully and criminal who spent more time in jail than in the open.

Malhoa paid the pimp Amâncio to serve as model at Adelaide's home, a poor lodging in a typical and central neighbourhood of Lisbon - Mouraria (the name dates back to the time the Moors inhabited the region, 11th century). This neghbourhood has been associated with prostitution, up till recently. The Municipality put a great effort to regenerate it and now is a cross cultural area with chinese and indian communities.

Malhoa's painting has a turbulent story, it seems Amâncio got jealous of the painter trying to paint Adelaide with less dress and threatened him with his knife. The painting took longer to finish because of frequent disagreements. Malhoa showed the painting to friends and took suggestions, namely to remove the tatoos of Adelaide, who had several, which was not usual at the time. Finally he shows the painting to his bourgeois friends and invites Amâncio and Adelaide as well. The painting was not well accepted in a conservative and provincial society but was acclaimed in foreign exhibitions.

This is a clip of an old film with Amália Rodrigues, the famous portuguese Fado singer, who sings a Fado dedicated to the painting, reproducing the scene of the painting - [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNCfktEU5L8]

Malhoa painted some other marginal scenes like the Drunken.

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