Published in Rhythms, expressions and representations of the body

Keywords: Keywords: Allegory, Amerindian, Denis Diderot, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Locke, Michel de Montaigne.

The Americas were proof of a new way of life, that of the Amerindians. Since the 16th century, the French already knew Portuguese America and called its native inhabitants brifilians, that is, Brazilians. These Indians aroused curiosity, they were living proof of the beings that inhabited exotic and rich lands, places that, for Europeans, were ready to be conquered and explored. According to the function of entertaining and instructing linked to artists as political philosophers, this article presents the relationship between image and text through the vision of four European philosophers − John Locke, Michel de Montaigne, Denis Diderot, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau − about America and its inhabitants, eyes covered by their own conceptions and prejudices, but willing to understand the New World. Whether in philosophy or visual art, the medium used to represent this exotic place − therefore strange − was the allegory.