In search of spices and Christians

Monday, October 29, 2012

 

In search of spices and Christians

Dr. Nancy Wilkinson will present “In Search of Spices and Christians: The Portuguese in the Age of Discovery” from noon to 1p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 1, in room 104 of the Bartlett Center. This talk will look at the early Portuguese settlement of Cochin, India, a particularly international city, and then note some of the exchanges in art that followed Portuguese expansion.

Background: The small country of Portugal was the first to enter the race for dominance of global markets. Their purpose was two-fold, to spread Christianity and, more pressing, to find a direct route to the sources of exotic spices in South East Asia: black pepper in India; cinnamon in Sri Lanka; cloves, nutmeg and mace in a few isolated islands of eastern Indonesia. The Portuguese succeeded in controlling European trade to Asia throughout the sixteenth century. By 1550 they had established trading ports in Goa (India), Macao (China), and Nagasaki (Japan).

Wilkinson is a professor emeritus in the Art Department where she taught Chinese and Japanese art as well as European art from the Greek period to the twentieth century. Her research area is the influence of Japanese art and culture on Great Britain during the nineteenth century.

Wilkinson's talk is part of an art faculty-led series. Click here for more information on the series. For museum blog, click here.  For Museum of Art website, click here