Description
From the voyages of Christopher Columbus to those of Alexander von Humboldt and Charles Darwin, the depiction of the wildlife played a central role in shaping how people on both sides of the Atlantic understood and imaged the region we now know as Latin The us. Nature provided incentives for exploration, commodities for trade, specimens for scientific investigation, and manifestations of divine forces. It also yielded a wealthy trove of representations, created both by natives to the region and visitors, which can be the subject of this lushly illustrated book. Writer Daniela Bleichmar shows that these images were not only artworks but also instruments for the production of knowledge, with scientific, social, and political repercussions. Early depictions of Latin American nature introduced European audiences to native medicines and non secular practices. By the 17th century, revelatory accounts of tobacco, chocolate, and cochineal reshaped science, trade, and empire world wide. Within the 18th and 19th centuries, collections and scientific expeditions produced both patriotic and imperial visions of Latin The us.
Through an interdisciplinary examination of more than 150 maps, illustrated manuscripts, still lifes, and landscape paintings spanning four hundred years, Visual Voyages establishes Latin The us as a critical website for scientific and artistic exploration, affirming that region’s transformation and the transformation of Europe as vitally connected histories.