The beginning of the Columbus era (>1492) started to unveil various aspects of the South American continent to the West. It is generally admitted that the first elaborated landscapes of these remote lands known in Europe are attributed to Frans Post (1612-1680) a Dutch painter who lived in Brazil between 1637 and 1644. He was commissioned by Johan Moritz von Nassau-Siegen, Dutch Governor in Brazil.
The Dutch Brazil (1630-1654) was at that time a large area located along the most Eastern part of Brazil. This is different from Suriname, a former Dutch colony established as from 1667, which is located at a slightly higher latitude. Suriname has a border with French Guiana.
Dutch Brasil, Credit Wikipedia
Despite different locations, the coastal and land views of the Dutch Brazil painted by Frans Post might show some resemblances with the Surinam and French Guyana ones we see today. All had and still have numerous wide muddy rivers meandering up the Atlantic ocean and huge areas of rain forest with a rich equatorial/tropical fauna and flora.
The picture below, dated 1639, depicts a scenery along the San Francisco river located in the Alagoas. Frans Post surely wanted to impress his audience with the Cabiaï on the foreground not known in Europe. If the large treelike cactus evokes an exotic country, the low horizon line and the blue and grey woolly sky could remind a Dutch atmosphere from Jacob Ruysdael's or van Goyen's paintings.
Rio Sao Francisco and the Fort Maurice, with a Cabiaï in the foreground, 1639, Le Louvre
Frans Post completed only very few (6) out of the 140 paintings attributed to him while he was in Brazil. Curiously, most of the ones he made in Brazil are in Le Louvre (Paris) because they were presented (and sold?) by Jan Moritz van Nassau to Louis XIV. But still one of these "originals" can be admired in the famous Moritz' house in The Hague which is known today as the Mauritshuis, one of the most beautiful Dutch museum (see painting below).
View of the Itamaracá, island in brazil, 1637, Mauritshuis, Den Haag
Credit Wikipedia
In the "Brazilian" landscapes he made once back in Haarlem, Frans Post was working from memories and from the sketches he brought back with him. One can notice that he slightly changed style, using brighter colours, showing more imagination or fantasy. This produced baroque or even romantic effects as proved by the painting below:
Paulo Alfonso falls, 1649, Sao Paulo Museum of Art,
Credit Wikipedia
In the same period, we should also not forget to mention Albert Eckhout (ca 1610-1665) who painted few local portraits and still lifes from the Dutch Brazil. Some of his paintings are exposed in the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum and in the Maurithuis (e.g. Study of two brazilian tortoises, ca 1640).
Last but not least, Dirk Valkenburg (1675-1721), two generation later, spent some years in Suriname where he made few paintings in the early 1700, but at that time the Dutch Brazil was over…
Few more Frans Post's Paintings
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