Instruments of Persuasion

Painting Manuals and the Visual Construction of Africa and Africans in the Viceroyalty of New Granada, Eighteenth Century

Abstract

In this article, I analyze how drawing and painting manuals circulated in the eight- eenth century in the Viceroyalty of New Granada presented a visual idea of Africa and Africans. Employing an intersectional perspective, the repertoires of “The Visit of the Three Kings” and “The Four Parts of the World” are examined in these manuals, with attention to the allegory of Africa. This analysis reveals how visual strategies aimed at persuading the audience of an idea about the continent and its inhabitants involved the instrumentalization of factors such as race, class, and gender through a process of visual othering. This analysis helps to understand how these strategies played a fundamental role in consolidating an image of blackness and Afro-descendancy within the colonial society, bringing consequences that endure to this day.