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Course: Europe 1300 - 1800 > Unit 9
Lesson 4: Dutch Republic- Model of the Dutch East India Company ship "Valkenisse"
- The Dutch art market in the 17th century
- Why make a self portrait?
- A Dutch doll house
- Van Mander, Het Schilder-Boeck
- Frederiks Andries, Covered coconut cup
- Osias Beert, Still Life with Various Vessels on a Table
- Anthony van Dyck, Self-Portrait as Icarus with Daedalus
- Saenredam, Interior of Saint Bavo, Haarlem
- Hals, Singing Boy with Flute
- Hals, Malle Babbe
- Frans Hals, The Women Regents
- Willem Claesz. Heda, Still Life with Glasses and Tobacco
- Rembrandt, The Artist in His Studio
- Rembrandt, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp
- Rembrandt, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp
- Rembrandt, The Night Watch
- Rembrandt, The Night Watch
- Rembrandt, Self-Portrait with Saskia
- Rembrandt, Girl at a Window
- Rembrandt, Aristotle with a Bust of Homer
- Rembrandt, Aristotle with a Bust of Homer
- Rembrandt, Christ Crucified between the Two Thieves: The Three Crosses.
- Rembrandt, Bathsheba at her Bath
- Rembrandt, Abraham Francen
- Rembrandt, Self-Portrait
- Rembrandt, Self-Portrait with Two Circles
- Rembrandt, The Jewish Bride
- Rembrandt, Christ Preaching (Hundred Guilder Print)
- Is it a genuine Rembrandt?
- Judith Leyster, The Proposition
- Judith Leyster, Self-Portrait
- Early Dutch Torah Finials
- Michaelina Wautier, The Five Senses
- Willem Kalf, Still Life with a Silver Ewer
- Gerrit Dou, A Woman Playing a Clavichord
- Vermeer, The Glass of Wine
- Vermeer, Young Woman with a Water Pitcher
- Johannes Vermeer, Woman Holding a Balance
- Vermeer, Woman Holding a Balance
- Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring
- Johannes Vermeer, The Art of Painting
- Jan Steen, Feast of St. Nicholas
- Ruisdael, View of Haarlem with Bleaching Grounds
- Jacob van Ruisdael, The Jewish Cemetery
- Andries Beeckman, The Castle of Batavia and Dutch colonialism
- Frans Post, Landscape with Ruins in Olinda
- Rachel Ruysch, Fruit and Insects
- Rachel Ruysch, Fruit and Insects
- Rachel Ruysch, Flower Still-Life
- Van Huysum, Vase with Flowers
- Conserving van Walscapelle's Flowers in a Glass Vase
- The Great Atlas, Dutch edition
- The Town Hall of Amsterdam
- Huis ten Bosch (House in the Woods)
- 17th century Delftware
- Baroque art in Holland
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Frans Post, Landscape with Ruins in Olinda
Frans Post, Landscape with Ruins in Olinda, 1663, oil on panel, 22.9 x 29.2 cm (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). A conversation between Dr. Anna C. Knaap, Assistant Curator, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank. Created by Smarthistory.
Video transcript
(soft piano music) - [Narrator #1] We're in the
Dutch and Flemish galleries at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in front of a small landscape by the artist Frans Post,
who is a Dutch artist. And it's worth mentioning, that he's the first European artist to come to the Americas to
create landscape paintings. The tree on the right
looks like a papaya tree and you can see ripe
fruit on its branches. Birds are landing on
some of the plant life that's very close to us in the foreground. Post is trying to locate us in Brazil. - [Narrator #2] What we're looking at is a Dutch settlement of Olinda, which was in the middle
of the 17th century known as an important sugar industry. And in the 1630s, the Dutch took over this part
of Brazil from the Portuguese, because they wanted access to
the tropical product of sugar that was in high demand in Europe. - [Narrator #1] When the Dutch arrived on the northeastern coast of Brazil, they destroyed the town of Olinda, and we're seeing the
ruins of what had been the Portuguese settlement in the painting. There is a road that winds
us through this landscape, and in the middle ground, we see the ruins of what had been some of
these Portuguese buildings. And as we move farther into the landscape, we see the sugar plantation. - [Narrator #2] There
is a plantation house and a religious building. Chapels were often part of sugar estates. - [Narrator #1] This is a very
structured, ordered landscape and scattered in a few places on the road we see six figures. There's a group of three
closest to the foreground, and it looks like they've stopped to take a rest as they're
walking down this road. Post is showing the
different enslaved Africans who have been forcibly brought here to work on the sugar plantation. We're also seeing a local
Indigenous Tupi individual. He's showing them in a rather relaxed, almost informal, romanticized way. After the Dutch defeat the Portuguese, you have the appointment of the Governor, Johan
Maurits, come to Brazil. He brings artists, such as Post, and another artist, Albert Eckhout, to document what they are seeing around the Dutch
settlement here in Brazil. And while Eckhout is
documenting populations as well as flora and fauna, Post primarily paints the landscape. - [Narrator #2] He depicts
recognizable landmarks, but he's also clearly interested in the main industry of Brazil. So there's many paintings of sugar mills. And those paintings he
continues to produce after his return to the Netherlands. So he realizes that in 1644, to be competitive on the art market, his unique depictions of Brazil
are a great brand for him. - [Narrator #1] Post
will continue to paint these Brazilian landscapes throughout the rest of his career. And the painting that
we're standing before was made after he left Brazil. And many of Post's landscapes
share similar conventions. They often have this winding road that starts in the foreground and leads us into the
background to the horizon line. We often see trees framing the scene. And then we typically see
the landscape receding into this blue-green horizon line. - [Narrator #2] Post is
overlaying the foreign place with recognizable landscape traditions. And the figures are
descendants of rustic laborers that you might see in a pastoral image by Rubens or Peter Bruegel, where the peasants were one with nature, and were dressed in
brightly colored outfits, carrying the produce of the land. These African laborers are shown in that guise
of the contented peasants, which is fiction. - [Narrator #1] Generally, he is painting for the art market. And what they wanted were
these scenes of what they felt were the exotic inhabitants, and animals, and plants of Brazil, which most people would not see
firsthand in their lifetime. - [Narrator #2] The figures
that Post depicts are idealized and the clothing they wear
is based on European finery. And we know from firsthand account that that was at odds with what enslaved people would've worn, which would've been cheap linens. - [Narrator #1] This is not
showing us an accurate portrayal of what life would've been like working on a sugar plantation. - [Narrator #2] Sugar
really revolutionizes the consumption and labor
market in this period. Sugar becomes from a sort of rarity, into an everyday commodity that people use as a preservative. - [Narrator #1] That interest
in sugar is so present in Dutch visual culture of the time. If we look around the galleries here, we can see a still life by Osias Beert that's showing us plates
filled with sweets. And we also see a painting of a woman who is dipping her finger
into a bowl of sugar. - [Narrator #2] And because
of the high demand for sugar, there is a drive to expand
plantations in the New World, which is the only place
where sugar can be grown because of the climate. Because of a need for more labor, the Dutch enter the slave
trade at this moment when they're in Brazil. Around 1637, Maurits
instigates the slave trade. - [Narrator #1] So in some
ways it makes a lot of sense that Post would become well known for showing sugar plantations. It's a powerful reminder that Post was not only seeking to represent the Brazil that he had seen, but he is also creating or inventing parts of that landscape to suit the
needs of his Dutch audience. (soft piano music)