Gezicht op Sint Helena Possibly 1787

Jan Brandes made this watercolor drawing of Saint Helena during his travels in the late 18th century. The work is a panorama of the island, broken into segments, and you can really see how it's made, by the individual sheets that are glued together. Brandes skillfully captures the way light and atmosphere transform solid matter, like rock, into a shimmering mirage. But there’s also the materiality of the ships, which were made from trees felled and milled by laborers, and assembled in shipyards. The sails were woven, the ropes twisted, each step involving human labor, and economic exchange. Of course, ships were crucial to the Dutch East India Company, the context for Brandes’s travels, and the engine of global capitalism. The artist’s hand, the pigments he mixed with water, the paper he painted on—all are evidence of human agency. By focusing our attention on these processes, we gain a richer understanding of the art and its historical significance.