Adam's Berg (Mulkirigala), Reclining Buddha Possibly 1785

Jan Brandes made this drawing of a Reclining Buddha at Mulkirigala, or Adam’s Berg in Sri Lanka. Brandes was working for the Dutch East India Company in the late eighteenth century, when the Dutch controlled maritime provinces of the island. At first glance, this appears to be a straightforward depiction of a sacred site. But the drawing is more complex than that; its seeming neutrality is loaded with the politics of colonialism. Brandes presents the Buddha as an object of curiosity, dwarfed by the looming cave and local inhabitants. The act of sketching itself becomes an assertion of control, framing the foreign in a way that’s palatable to a European audience. Consider the power dynamics at play: a Dutchman representing a culture through his own lens, reducing its complexity to fit a colonial narrative. How does this image participate in the historical subjugation of a people and their beliefs? Note the almost clinical rendering, devoid of spiritual depth, emphasizing the ‘otherness’ of the scene.