In the digital age where images predominate in the propagation of what is new that we currently live in, how can we reconstruct a different time when textual culture prevailed over visual culture? Understanding a reality constructed in a different time, within the specific mental framework of the time, is the challenge that we propose in this conference.
Going back to the time of European maritime expansion (15th and 16th centuries), we will seek to offer a counterpoint between written and visual languages in the description of new worlds, their inhabitants, natural species, physical and human landscapes, individualizing the Portuguese situation in comparison with the experiences of other European nations.
The balance presented will seek to equate the reasons for the reduced Portuguese visual fortune, ranging from the possible strategy of banning visual information to the preference for verbal and literary expression, to the detriment of the use of images, as a defining pillar of the national culture in progress.