Paper short abstract:

My paper aims at reviewing attempts to analyze mechanisms of image transfer within the discipline of Art History. As a testing field for different concepts from Aby Warburg to Régis Debray and beyond, I will focus on one specific event, namely the visualization of the Portuguese Restauração in Macau in 1642.

Paper long abstract:

In Art History and Visual Studies, concepts of pictorial transfer have attracted new attention. Research groups focusing on "Transcultural Negotiations in the Ambits of Art" (Berlin, FU) are springing up and books like "Transmission Image. Visual Translation and Cultural Agency" (Mersmann/Schneider 2009) are being published. Art historians are also looking back for advice: Only recently, an ambitious research group at the London Warburg Institute started to review Aby Warburg's "concept" of Bilderfahrzeuge (image vehicles) and test it for its suitability within the future of iconology and within the increasingly popular research field of global art history.

My paper focuses on a group of image transfers that were undertaken in the wake of the Portuguese Restauração of 1640: This central event in Portugal's history had to be communicated not only to the European nations but to all the regions that belonged to the vast Portuguese overseas empire. I will analyze the visualization of the Restauração on the Chinese peninsula of Macau that had been under Portuguese administration since 1557. From a written account of 1644 we learn that fireworks, processions and ephemeral sculptures were used to acquaint the inhabitants with the new political situation. Images, however, do not only transport information - they actually shape it. They are at the same time transmitters and agents of culture. And it is this fundamental insight that makes the long-distance transport of images such a fascinating topic. It is worth questioning how and if at all we are able to really grasp the mechanisms of global image traffic.