Visions of Savage Paradise: Albert Eckhout, Court Painter in Colonial Dutch Brazil

Parker Brienen, Rebecca. Visions of Savage Paradise: Albert Eckhout, Court Painter in Colonial Dutch Brazil. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006.

Rebecca Parker Brienen’s book Visions of Savage Paradise stands as the foremost account of the work of Albert Eckhout, the principal painter that accompanied the governor of Dutch Brazil, Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen. Among Eckhout’s paintings that were produced on the basis of his time there are a variety of still lives of flora and fauna, a painting of dancing indigenous people, and 8 ethnographic figure paintings that depict Africans, Mulattos, Tapuya, and Brazilians. Approaching the subject of Dutch Brazil from an art historical perspective, she analyzes the figures by Eckhout to determine his sources and the meanings behind his representations. Eckhout does not, of course, depict the people of Palmares, but his images of the various peoples do provide insight into the narrative that the Dutch were attempting to convey. These paintings being made for the governor, they indicate an ideal of sorts, in which oppressed peoples are visualized and, as such, taken under control. In the context of Palmares, the gaps between Eckhout’s practice as painter and his work and the reality of the fugitive communities provide an interesting angle of analysis for future examination. This book is a useful starting point to grasping the artistic aims of the Dutch colonials.