Artistic experiences in the Iberian world, sixteenth–seventeenth centuries

This chapter outlines the major ways in which artistic production reflected issues of cultural negotiation in the territories of contact and even sometimes in Europe, varying according to both internal and external factors. Artistic production and circulation in the Spanish and Portuguese territories in America, Asia, and Africa involved new and fascinating objects and processes. Iberian colonisation came with the mandate to transplant Iberian culture, including art and artistic practice, to the new territories. The strict obedience to the classical discourse is a remarkable feature of the building, which has been called the most classical Portuguese building in the world, even more so than the cathedrals that were built in metropolitan Portugal at the same time. In the Portuguese realms, orthodox classicism remained valid throughout the seventeenth century, but other options were also formulated from the end of the sixteenth century mostly through the action of the Jesuits.