Travelling Artists in the Colonies

Such commissioners influenced what the artists showed and didn’t show in their work. In short, we are looking through their eyes at the colonial world. In many of their paintings and drawings, these artists focused on nature, drawing inspiration from what was to them an unfamiliar and exotic landscape. They paid far less attention to the people who lived there. These people tended to feature in paintings and drawings only as small, minor figures, to emphasise the overwhelming vastness of the landscape. Jan Brandes, a clergyman serving with the VOC, was an exception to this general rule. He made personal drawings of people in Batavia (Jakarta), Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and the Dutch Cape Colony.