Images play a key role in political communication and the ways we come to understand the power structures that shape society. Nowhere is this more evident than in the process of empire building, in which visual language has long been a highly effective means of overpowering another culture with one's own values and beliefs. Visualizing Portuguese Power examines the visual arts within the Portuguese empire between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. With a focus on the appropriation of Portuguese-Christian art within the colonies, the book looks at how these and other objects could be staged to generate new layers of meaning.

The act of including by standers within the scene of an artwork marked an important shift in the ways artists addressed the beholder, as well as a significant transformation of the relationship between images and their viewership. In such works, the "public" in the picture could be seen as a mediating between different times, people, and contents. With The Public in the Picture, contributors describe this shift, with each essay focusing on a specific group of works created at a different moment in history. Together, the contributions explore the political, religious, and social contexts of the publics depicted and relate this shift to the rise of perspectival representation. Contributors to The Public in the Picture include Andrew Griebler, Annette Haug, Henrike Haug, Christiane Hille, Christopher Lakey, Andrea Lermer, Cornelia Logemann, Anja Rathmann-Lutz, Alberto Saviello, Daniela Wagner, and Ittai Weinryb.