Gezicht op de rivier Brandas op Java 1869

Johan Conrad Greive made this watercolor of the Brandas River in Java sometime in the mid-19th century. The image encapsulates the complicated relationship between the Netherlands and its colony, the Dutch East Indies. The Dutch presence in Java was initially about trade, with the Dutch East India Company exerting increasing control over the island. The visual codes here, the sublime landscape, the tiny figures of Javanese people, all speak to the aesthetics of colonialism at that time. The image projects the idea of the Dutch presence as natural and inevitable. At the same time, it ignores the social and political realities of colonial rule. To fully understand this artwork, we need to investigate the history of Dutch colonialism, the economics of the spice trade, and the social history of Java. The image may seem like a simple landscape, but it's deeply embedded in the power structures of its time.