Military Encounters in the Eighteenth Century: Carlos Julião and Racial Representations in the Portuguese Empire

This article analyses two illustrations produced by the Italian soldier and artist, Carlos Juliao, who served in the Portuguese colonial army as an engineer during the second half of the eighteenth century. The images came to the public eye in 1960, on the eve of the disintegration of the empire, serving as a visual support to the Portuguese colonial ideology. They combine views of ports and plans of fortresses with human figures representing, symbolically, the places illustrated. This article analyses the illustrations in the historical context of the Enlightenment and the Absolutist state, which conditioned the artist's gaze. Este artigo analisa duas ilustrações produzidas pelo militar/artista italiano Carlos Julião, que serviu o exército colonial português na categoria de Engenheiro, durante a segunda metade do século XVIII. As imagens vieram a público em 1960, nas vésperas da desintegração do império, servindo de suporte visual à ideologia colonial portuguesa. Combinam panoramas de portos e plantas de fortalezas com figuras humanas simbolizando os locais representados. Este artigo analisa as ilustrações no contexto histórico do iluminismo e do absolutismo que condicionou o olhar do artista.