Bulletin of Portuguese - Japanese Studies ISSN: 0874-8438
[email protected] Universidade Nova de Lisboa Portugal Serrão, Vítor ECUMENISM IN IMAGES AND TRANS-CONTEXTUALITY IN PORTUGUESE 16TH CENTURY ART: ASIAN REPRESENTATIONS IN PENTECOSTES BY THE PAINTER ANTÓNIO LEITÃO IN FREIXO DE ESPADA À CINTA Bulletin of Portuguese - Japanese Studies, vol. 20, junio, 2010, pp. 125-165 Universidade Nova de Lisboa Lisboa, Portugal Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=36129852006 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative BPJS, 2010, 20, 125-165 ECUMENISM IN IMAGES AND TRANS-CONTEXTUALITY IN PORTUGUESE 16TH CENTURY ART: ASIAN REPRESENTATIONS IN PENTECOSTES BY THE PAINTER ANTÓNIO LEITÃO IN FREIXO DE ESPADA À CINTA Vítor Serrão Institute of History of Art, Arts Faculty, Lisbon University * Abstract Following the identification of an unusual 16th century painting forgotten until recently in a chapel in Freixo de Espada à Cinta on the distant frontier of North-east Portugal and an attempt to prepare the biography and gather the pictorial corpus of António Leitão, the gentleman-painter, this article raises a series of issues about the representation of a Pentecostes which shows images of Asians. Some of the central aspects mentioned and analysed are the power assumed by the images, the categori- sation of Portuguese society itself at the end of the Renaissance and the creation of stereotypes by means of religious images.