Abstract

The present Special Issue examines visual and spatial hybridity in order to explore the scope and limits of the application of theories on encounter, hybridity and globalisation to the visual arts of the Iberian world in both European and extra-European contexts. It examines hybridity through case studies from Spain and Portugal, as well as cultural, artistic and architectural production in other imperial centres in the Iberian world. The eight articles that comprise this themed issue discuss the circulation of works of art and ideas, continuity and change, and processes of acculturation in comparative perspectives. Articles engage critically with the limits of hybridity as a historiographical term, and what they pose for our understanding of early modern visual culture. While the proposed Special Issue does not include a case study of every city or region in the Iberian world, articles discuss how artistic and cultural production combined forms expressing the local, regional and transregional identities, thus creating a rich variety of crosscultural designs that are a reflection of the period, both within and beyond Iberian imperial boundaries.