Europe described the New World using its own preexisting categories and frameworks

Evidence

Between 1590 and 1634, the Flemish engraver Theodor de Bry published his Historia Americae in ten illustrated volumes. These were leading examples of a new popular literature about the New World and the discoveries there. De Bry’s books contained elaborate engravings of life and customs of the New World. Here we see the New World reworked—re-presented—within European aesthetic conventions, Western “ways of seeing.” Different images of America are superimposed on one another. De Bry, for example, transformed the simple, unpretentious sketches which John White had produced in 1587 of the Algonquian Indians he had observed in Virginia. Facial features were retouched, gestures adjusted, and postures reworked according to more classical European styles. The effect overall, Hugh Honour observes, was “to tame and civilize the people White had observed so freshly” (1976, 75). — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 608 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The Treaty of Tordesillas divided the undiscovered world between European powers; Description of the New World fused into the classical idealization of the Golden World; European identity formed through internal cohesion paired with contrast to other worlds (+8 more)

Related

• Engravers reworked New World sketches into classical European conventions, taming their subjects (similarity 0.88)
• Description of the New World fused into the classical idealization of the Golden World (similarity 0.83)
• Europeans described the New World through preexisting Western conceptual categories (similarity 0.82)
• Encountering new continents forced Europe to reclassify all humanity. (similarity 0.79)
• Europe’s discovery of other civilizations forced recognition of irremediable human pluralism. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Engravers reworked New World sketches into classical European conventions, taming their subjects #exemplifies (0.95) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 608
• Columbus populated the New World with Plinian monsters and giants drawn from medieval romance. #exemplifies (0.93)
• Description of the New World fused into the classical idealization of the Golden World #exemplifies (0.92)
• The dog-headed cannibal figure predates Columbus and was projected onto the New World. #exemplifies (0.90)
• European identity formed through internal cohesion paired with contrast to other worlds #expands (0.75)
• Colonial expansion was foreclosed by ideology and prior European division of the world #expands (0.75)
• Europe’s discovery of other civilizations forced recognition of irremediable human pluralism. #complicates (0.72) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 288
• Encountering non-European peoples strained Europe’s Christian idea of human unity #contradicts (0.70)