A reversal of alliances in Europe led the Dutch to settle on the northeast coast of Brazil in an attempt to protect their commercial interests in South America. Recife becomes Mauritsstad, the capital of this short lived Nieuw Holland in America.
Frans Post, younger brother of the painter Pieter Post, is staying in Nieuw Holland from 1637 to 1644. He realizes many drawings and some landscape paintings with gray skies attesting the rainy condition of the equatorial climate.
In 1646, Frans is enrolled in the Guild of St Luke of his hometown, Haarlem. He joins therein Pieter de Molijn who was mixing some genre painting into his landscapes. For a quarter century, Frans Post will paint the views of Dutch Brazil.
His images soon lose their realism to display a successful colonization, with busy slaves in fields surrounding small houses. He reuses his sketches to introduce exotic flora and fauna. Over time, the foregrounds become empty, perhaps because the artist preferred being less accurate for avoiding contradiction. His memory was certainly impaired by alcohol.
On April 22 in New York, Sotheby's sells a nice view of Brazil, lot 41 estimated $ 1.5M. This oil on panel 35 x 41 cm painted around 1670 includes two groups of workers, a blue sky dotted with clouds, and the inevitable exotic symbols: a tall palm tree and an armadillo gently crossing path with an anteater.
Frans Post, younger brother of the painter Pieter Post, is staying in Nieuw Holland from 1637 to 1644. He realizes many drawings and some landscape paintings with gray skies attesting the rainy condition of the equatorial climate.
In 1646, Frans is enrolled in the Guild of St Luke of his hometown, Haarlem. He joins therein Pieter de Molijn who was mixing some genre painting into his landscapes. For a quarter century, Frans Post will paint the views of Dutch Brazil.
His images soon lose their realism to display a successful colonization, with busy slaves in fields surrounding small houses. He reuses his sketches to introduce exotic flora and fauna. Over time, the foregrounds become empty, perhaps because the artist preferred being less accurate for avoiding contradiction. His memory was certainly impaired by alcohol.
On April 22 in New York, Sotheby's sells a nice view of Brazil, lot 41 estimated $ 1.5M. This oil on panel 35 x 41 cm painted around 1670 includes two groups of workers, a blue sky dotted with clouds, and the inevitable exotic symbols: a tall palm tree and an armadillo gently crossing path with an anteater.
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