Art and Empire in the Iberian World

• Credit value: 30 credits at Level 5
• Tutors: Professor Carmen Fracchia, Zoltán Biedermann
• Assessment: two essays of 2500 words and a three-hour written examination

This module offers a survey of the art or, more generally, the visual culture produced and consumed in the Spanish and Portuguese Empires from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century. It seeks to approach the Empires through art, but also art through the Iberian imperial experience. Hence this module is global and multicultural in scope.

It is structured around a series of places where the visual forms were particularly complex during the formation of the Iberian Empire. These include Lisbon, Seville, Madrid, Mexico, Bahia, Goa, Agra, Macao, and Manila.

We will explore a number of subjects and historiographical issues as they unfold in various places at different times: what was imperial or colonial in Iberian visual culture? How did the encounters with other peoples influence it? Who produced art for whom and for what purpose? How did visual forms contribute to the formation of new ideas and identities? And how did the circulation of the artistic objects, skills and tastes contribute to the making of the Early Modern world?

Subjects discussed will include 'Collecting exotic items under Manuel I of Portugal', 'Afro-Portuguese Art', 'Philip II and the Escorial', 'Van der Hamen and the Material Culture of Expansion', 'Slavery and Art in Seville, New Spain and Brazil', 'Japanese Namban Painting', 'Christian influences in Mughal miniature Painting' or 'Art and Devotion in the Philippines'.

An introductory session will introduce the general theoretical elements necessary for the discussion of the hybridity of the visual culture of the Iberian Empires.