Page 154 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

time, soon after his return from the voyage to
Brazil, it is said that Alvares Cabral spent some
time in the city of Viseu or in the neighboring
village of Azurara da Beira (today known as Man-
gualde), where his relatives owned property. His
ancestors were buried in Viseu cathedral, and his
grandfather had been a respected property owner
in the city.
There are no references to any Tupinamba
having been brought back to Portugal on Alvares
Cabral's return trip, though it is known that Col-
umbus had brought West Indian natives to Seville
years earlier. The Portuguese first came ashore in
Brazil at Porto Seguro on 21 April 1500. There
they encountered members of the Tupinamba
ethnic group, a nomadic culture characterized by
its high degree of adaptation to the tropical forest.
The natives spoke the Tupi language, which was in
use all along the coast of Brazil in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, after which it was
replaced by Portuguese as the area's lingua franca.
The specifics of this first encounter are pre-
served in a letter written by Pero Vaz de Caminha
(i45O?-i5Oo) to be sent to Dom Manuel i (Foutora
da Costa 1968). It emphasized the distinct charac-
teristics and skin color of the native peoples:
When the Portuguese boat arrived at the mouth
of the river, there were nearly twenty "brown
men all nude with nothing to cover their shame-
ful parts. They had bows in their hands and their
arrows And one of them gave him a hat of
long birds' feathers with a small crown of red and
brown feathers such as those of the parrot/' Later
the author adds: "their features are reddish brown
with good faces and good well-formed noses."
Short and robust (from 15.8 cm to 16.2 cm), the
Indians had horizontal eyes and aquiline noses,
straight, black, and short hair ("cut even above the
ears"); they removed their facial hair, as well as
body hair, eyelashes, and eyebrows.
The Portuguese observed the natives before
proceeding to disembark. They had not appreci-
ated the food the Portuguese offered them (bread,
cooked fish, honey, and overripe figs). In the
course of the letter Vaz de Caminha moves from
emphasizing the Indians' humanity to describing
Cabral (1468-1519), who in 1500 commanded the appearance. He had spent his life in constant them as "bestial people, with little knowledge
first Portuguese fleet to reach Brazil. Cabral's travel, participating in an expedition to Morocco ... they are like birds or mountain animals," in a
portrait is known from a limestone medallion, when he was only eighteen years old, and soon statement affirming the Europeans' ethnic super-
surrounded with a garland of fruit in the style of thereafter in an expedition to Graciosa in the iority. The author does, however, repeatedly
della Robbia, that decorates the walls of the south Azores, which resulted in his being knighted by emphasize the Indians' innocence, "such that
wing of the cloister of the Jeronimos in Belem, Dom Joao n and receiving a handsome pension. Adam's could be no greater," a statement that con-
where he is shown with a Renaissance helmet in The artist may also have made Alvares Cabral look tributed a good deal to the developing myth of the
the Florentine style (similar to those depicted in older to emphasize his experience as a navigator. noble savage. J.T.
many frontispieces of the Leitura Nova [cat. 26]) Although there are no historical records of
and a Roman-style tunic fastened at the shoulder. Alvares Cabral's participation in the commission-
The protruding jaw, accentuated by the long ing of the altarpiece, we know from a document
beard, in the image on the medallion is close to dated 22 September 1500 that Dom Fernando
the facial structure of the figure in the painting. Gongalves de Miranda, Bishop of Viseu from 1487
At the time the Adoration was painted, Alvares to 1491, was concerned that the costs of the paint-
Cabral would have been about 35 years old. His ing had not been covered and was seeking to
personal history may explain his much older enlist the support of patrons of the arts. At that

EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD 153