At a time when buzz words like "globalization" are inescapable, this view into ‘proto-globalization’ offers a compelling implication that--for cultures on both sides of the exchange--globalization was as dynamic, challenging, and, sometimes, profitable for merchants and explorers 500 years ago as it is for businesspeople today. Although a caravel might take longer to reach Mumbai than a telephone connection, each stems from the same need for commerce, and each creates complex trans-cultural contacts. The unprecedented increase in global trade spurred by Portuguese ambition and daring brought unquestionable prosperity to many and unfortunate exploitation to others. 

Yet, the exhibition shies away from the weighty questions of morality, exploitation, and conquest that typically pervade discussions of the colonial transactions between European explorers and other cultures--in this case, Africa, China, Japan, India, and America. According to the exhibition's brochure, "Exploration turned Portugal, a small country at the edge of Europe, into a major world power, yet its most enduring legacy is cultural rather than political." The artifacts and documents on display reinforce this notion that, though Portugal's wealth was fleeting, more subtle influences have persevered.

The cultural inquiry that resulted from Portuguese trade and exploration was reciprocal, with the East learning much about the West as well.

While the harm done to native cultures has been well documented, much of the exhibit explores the European artistic response to exploration. It catalogues the effects of Portuguese trade and exploration on European society--in particular parts of the continent other than Portugal, many of which were waiting for their own chance to claim parts of the globe. Paintings and prints by German artists of the early 16th century capture this influence and sense of wonder. One print by the Albrecht Dürer, “The Rhinoceros,” shows the German artist's efforts to present this animal, revealed through "the King of Portugal in Lisbon." A monstrous and scaly interpretation of the now familiar beast, its hairy face is covered like a horse's would be in battle, but by jagged bone instead of plate armor, with horns both on its nose and at the top of its neck. The exhibition implies that, a century before, such a print would be written off as artistic musing on some mythological spawn of Echidna. Here, however, Dürer notes that it is pracht auf India--a wonder of India revealed only through Portuguese ambition.

Likewise, there is a pair of costume studies by Dürer's contemporary Hans Burgkmair the Elder called “Youth Holding a Club and Shield and Youth Holding an Ax.” In these small works the artist represents what he understands Latin American natives to look like, by incongruously adorning African youth in Germany with assembled garments, ornaments, and weapons transported from the Portuguese colonies in Brazil. Such attempts to represent "the other" to Western audiences have been rightly criticized in recent decades as potentially exploitative, not to mention inaccurate. At the same time, however, efforts to portray, or even replicate, alien cultures invariably include admirable efforts to understand them--even in the contrived setting of a German artist's studio. Burgkmair's era included similar attempts to ‘understand’ foreign culture. He and his contemporaries and became famous for their uneducated application of cultural artifacts--like clothing and weaponry--in art, resulting in fiercely anachronistic representations of historical and religious scenes. 

Many of these ‘appreciations’ of foreign lands made their way into Kunst und Wunderkammer ("chamber of art and wonders") in the homes of nobility. Meant to demonstrate the nobleman's erudition and cultivation, the Kunstkammer was filled with indigenous art and novelties from around the world, examples of which fill two rooms at the Sackler. From tortoiseshell plates and decorated rhinoceros horns, to exotic swords and a giant gilded nut; all sorts of naturalia and artificialia are presented, the most imposing example being a large ivory stool made from parts of an elephant, engraved with the arms of the Hapsburg Emperor Maximilian.

But trade's impact on culture extended far beyond baubles for rich Europeans. The exhibit suggests that the cultural inquiry that resulted from Portuguese trade and exploration was reciprocal, with the East learning much about the West as well, particularly through the influence of the Society of Jesus. Many of the pieces in the exhibition's section on China portray a fruitful interaction between the native Chinese population and the Jesuit missionaries. A portrait of Mateo Ricci, the first Jesuit missionary on the mainland, by Emmanuel Pereira (Yu Wenhui) depicts Ricci dressed in the traditional robes of a Chinese scholar, rather than those of a Roman cleric.

A similar blending of cultures appears in a 17th-century guide to praying the Rosary, beautifully rendered by Gaspar Ferreira, in which the otherwise conventional images of the Annunciation have been transferred to a Chinese garden. In the same room is a series of statuettes entitled "Three Madonnas." As the plaques explain, the title is fairly presumptuous, since given the time and place of their sculpting; the figures could be either the Madonna and Child, or Guan Yin, the bodhisattva of mercy, both of whom were associated with the signifiers of mother and child. Near them are a number of Ming Dynasty vases and bowls in the traditional blue and white style, displaying European Renaissance motifs--such as grotesques --or Catholic religious devotions such as the Ave Maria.

Artists were not the only ones to expand their work through the mingling of cultures. While Christian themes made their way into Chinese art, the Chinese and Christian missionaries likewise traded scientific knowledge. Moreover, thanks in part to the Jesuit order's command of science and mathematics, the upper echelons of Chinese society encouraged their activities within the Empire. Taking up the better part of a wall, a map for the Chinese court by Fr. Ferdinand Verbiest represents the known world, labels it in Chinese, and includes traditional Chinese iconographic adornments.

While the exhibition portrays a sanguine exchange of belief and knowledge between Portuguese and Chinese, the rooms dedicated to Portuguese interaction with Japan paint a less fortunate picture. While the Portuguese Black Ships facilitated trade between Nagasaki and Portuguese outposts in China and South Asia, the meeting of the native Japanese and the Europeans was not terribly fruitful. Matters became even worse following the expulsion of Christians--both westerners and Japanese converts--from Japan by Shogun Tokugawa in 1614. 

“Encompassing the Globe” provides a poignant and important counterpoint to the ethos of cultural relativism.

A 1622 painting from the school of Giovani Nicoló entitled “Martyrs in Nagasaki” depicts Japanese Christians being beheaded while a throng of Jesuits, Dominicans, and Franciscans wait to be executed by government authorities. Across the room is a number of Fumi-e, or "picture treading" plaques. These plaques look like the sort of mass produced images one might find at a religious goods store--Virgin and Child, Crucifiction, Nativity, etc--albeit somewhat worn down. This is because they were placed in front of suspected Christians who were commanded to step on them, thus renouncing their allegiance to God. Those who refused to do so committed a serious affront in the eyes of the government, and could expect an end like those in the Nicoló painting. This conflict, though, did not prevent the creation of some singular works of art on the part of the Jesuits. The exhibition presents such Jesuit creations as lectionaries, beautifully rendered in a Japanese style, a primitive musket intricately inlaid with Japanese characters, and other works that emerged from the meeting of cultures.

Though proto-globalization, just like its contemporary version, did not rain wealth and enlightenment down on all participants (whether willing or unwilling), “Encompassing the Globe” provides a poignant and important counterpoint to the image of the marauding European colonizer and the ethos of cultural relativism. Once-mighty Portugal revealed the world to itself, and its legacy lives on--not only in art and legend, but in the economic system that has now encircled the globe. China, Japan, and other formerly mysterious lands have themselves picked up where Portugal left off, and global culture may ultimately be better off for it.