International Symposium "The Imagery of Hearts. Visible and Invisible", Osaka, Japan, October 2018.
Publicado em 15-02-2022
One of my last works, on the heart and its representations in the Luso-Oriental iconography, emphasizes the mission in China. Without Eurocentrism or imposition of cultures, in an accommodative perspective, the heart, more than being a vital organ, played an essential role in establishing cultural relations between the West and the East. This text is part of the proceedings of the International Symposium "The Imagery of Hearts. Visible and Invisible", Osaka, Japan, October 2018.
"The Heart: Symbolism, Iconography, and Art in the Portuguese Seaborne Empire. The Heart towards Sunrise... "
TEIXEIRA, Victor
The imagery of hearts: visible and invisible
International Symposium at the 69th Japanese Society for Aesthetics Annual Conference
October 2018, Kansai University, Osaka
"Starting from a study of the heart in the culture of Europe and particularly in Portugal, we will naturally focus on the religious tradition since the Middle Ages, especially in its final part. It was at this time, that the Portuguese vessels set out to discover and encompass the world, beginning soon the process of Christianization of the Portuguese seaborne empire. In the first Atlantic phase, it then passed to the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, from Macao to Japan and the Spice Islands. Later Brazil and then Africa, where it would remain until the end of the twentieth century.
In this process of expansion in the world, not only the sword and the currency did their work: language, culture and faith operated and the art created visual forms on this process. This is where we will look for the Heart, from the Portuguese historical, cultural and theological models and their miscegenation and encounters with other cultures. Its radiance, its forms, and its inclusion: the invisible heart that becomes visible with art, through the way of religion.
In Portugal, the main devotion it´s the Sacred Heart of Jesus, linked to the devotion of the Five Sacred Wounds (“Chagas”) of Christ. The devotion and first artworks date from at least 1728 and had as a great impeller Queen D. Maria I, who obtained from the Pope the prescription of the feast of the Heart of Jesus throughout the kingdom and raised in his honor the Basílica of Estrela (Lisbon). It´s important to highlight the parallels with art in Spain as well as in its empire. In the Iberian case, before the devotion, there were already approaches to the heart in the sacred, through art, since the Devotio Moderna and emphasized by the teathrum sacrum of the Baroque era…"
COMENTÁRIOS
Historiador, professor, investigador e autor, além de consultor e colaborador em publicações periódicas regulares.
