Alberti’s Window

Anna Bella Geiger, “Our Daily Bread (O Pão Nosso de Cada Dia),” 1978. Six postcards and screenprint on paper bag mounted on card. Tate Modern

I recently returned from helping to co-lead a study abroad program in London. Our group visited the Tate Modern and I became familiar with Anna Bella Geiger’s work, Our Daily Bread (O Pão Nosso de Cada Dia). The postcards on display in the museum document a performance in which Geiger ate bread to highlight the poverty in Brazil, as well as South America. The holes in the bread depict the outline of Brazil and South America, in addition to the outlines on the empty bread basket.

I’m struck by the title, which references the Lord’s Prayer from the Bible (“Give us this day our daily bread”). It evokes the strong Catholic presence in Brazil, which has roots in the colonial period and the evangelization efforts of missionaries. Geiger has explained how she was influenced by the Jesuit’s “systems” in teaching Native people about Catholicism, and I think that the visual example paired with Christian text ties into the system that she is referencing.

As discussed in this video, Geiger’s work often uses the imagery of cartography with untraditional artistic mediums to suggest a disconnect between belonging and not belonging to something. I think there is a disconnect suggested between how Christianity and its “daily bread” prayer are often seen as a part of Brazilian identity, but poverty and hunger is also very much a part of Brazilian identity too.

Ironically, bread-made-from-wheat was not always associated with Brazil. Ana Carolina de Carvalho Viotti has written about how manioc was nicknamed “bread of Brazil” in the colonial period. And the maps of the colonial period include imagery of brazilwood or sugarcane as the key exports that impacted the country’s identity. It was much later when wheat production began in Brazil, not until in 1919. Production has increased over the past hundred years and right now Brazil is on target to have a record wheat crop this year. It seems like the meanings of Our Daily Bread is changing in some ways, with this rise of wheat and its potential economic impact, although poverty in the country is still a major concern. Ironically, the record wheat crop in Brazil has been pitched as a way to end the wheat shortages in the world as a result of the invasion of Ukraine, so perhaps Geiger’s image of the country of Brazil now expresses solution to help combat hunger elsewhere in the world.

Kehinde Wiley, “Indio Cuauhtemoc: The World Stage, Brazil,” 2017. Oil on canvas. Photo taken by the author

Last month I visited the Portland Art Museum and saw a painting by Kehinde Wiley that I hadn’t seen before. This painting is currently on display as a loan from the collection of Arlene and Harold Schnitzer, major philanthropists in the area (Harold passed away in 2011). I already was familiar with Wiley’s series called The World Stage that feature people from countries around the world, but I wasn’t familiar with this one that comes from the Brazil installment of The World Stage. And as I’ve studied this work, I realized that this painting was made fairly recently, in 2017, almost ten years after the initial series was begun and exhibited. The painting isn’t listed as part of Wiley’s Brazil series, and I wonder why Wiley decided to create this painting so much later. Did he have all of the source material and photos of the model from before, but simply ran out of time to start this painting until almost a decade later?

Wiley began this project through a residency in Rio de Janeiro in March 2008 and exhibited the installation in 2009. At the time, a short book was published with two essays and images of the exhibition painting, and similar books were produced for other installments of The World Stage. The exhibition aimed to draw attention to issues of Afro-Brazilian identity and the complex and problematic social issues created due to the history of slavery and colonialism in Brazil. As a result, Wiley’s Afro-Brazilian figures are positioned in compositions that are reminiscent of famous paintings and monuments in Brazilian culture. Here are a few examples:

• Wiley’s painting “Omen Negro (Black Man)” refers to a watercolor by the German artist Zacharias Wagener (who was in Brazil when the Dutch were there). Ironically, Wagener’s watercolor is actually a copy of another painting titled “African Man” by Albert Eckhout, so there are multiply layers of copying and appropriation that are taking place. Furthermore, the title of this work seems have layers of appropriation and inadvertent spelling corruption: Wiley’s phrase “Omen Negro” is a corruption of Wagener’s title “Omem Negro,” which itself is a corruption of the accurate Portuguese phrase “homem negro” (“black man”).
• Wiley’s painting “Marechal Floriano Peixoto” copies the composition of a monument in Cindelândia’s public square in Rio de Janiero. The monument honors the second president of the Republic, Floriano Peixoto, but these two particular figures represent the indigenous people of Brazil. The inclusion of these active, strong figures and their composition alludes to the colonial presence in Brazil and the subjugation of the native presence by the Portuguese. Other allegorical figures in the monument recognize the African, Portuguese, and Catholic aspects of Brazilian history.
• Wiley’s “Alegoria a Lei do Ventre Livre” is inspired by a gesso sculpture by A. D. Bressae of the same title. Kimberly Cleveland explains that this allegorical figure is an reference to the 1871 law which declared that the children who were born to slave parents would be free. She writes, “The irony of this law is suggested in the less-than-enthusiastic expression of Wiley’s model,” but absent from the original, nineteenth-century sculpture” of a smiling boy.¹
• Wiley has multiple paintings (see one, two and three) dedicated to Alberto Santos Dumont, an innovator in aviation. The compositions for these paintings come from a monument honoring Dumont, located outside of the Dumont airport in Rio.

The influence of Brazilian monuments on the composition brings me back to the new Kehinde Wiley addition to this series: this 2017 painting is inspired by a monument of Cuauhtemoc that is located in the Parque do Flamengo in Rio de Janeiro.

Left: Kehinde Wiley, “Indio Cuauhtemoc: The World Stage, Brazil,” 2017 (photo taken by the author). Right: Monument to the Indio Cuauhtemoc in Rio de Janeiro. Image courtesy Wikipedia

The monument itself is a bizarre connection to Brazil, because is quite oblique. The statue is in Brazil because it was a gift from Mexico in 1922, to recognize the 100th anniversary of the Brazilians’ independence from Portugal in 1822. The statue depicts Cuauhtemoc, the last Aztec emperor, who ruled between 1520-1521 and then was executed by the Spanish. Perhaps there is a loose parallel between the end of an indigenous empire and the end of a colonial period, but it is a little bit of a stretch. Nonetheless, the sculpture is seen as a symbol of friendship between Mexico and Brazil.

By assuming the same composition as the Cuauhtemoc sculpture in Brazil, which is itself a copy of an original 1887 sculpture by Miguel Noreña in Mexico City, Wiley’s painting continues to add layers of appropriation and meaning. One theme is of connections and friendships between countries, since Wiley, as an American painter, took temporary residence in Brazil and painted Brazilian subjects. By depicting an Afro-Brazilian model, Wiley also touches on colonial history and those who were conquered and subjugated by Europeans, Africans and Aztecs alike.

Kehinde Wiley, detail of “Indio Cuauhtemoc: The World Stage, Brazil,” 2017. Oil on canvas. Photo taken by the author

Kehinde Wiley, detail of “Indio Cuauhtemoc: The World Stage, Brazil,” 2017. Oil on canvas. Photo taken by the author

The casual clothing of Wiley’s subject allude to commodifications by referencing popular (American) fashion and culture. In addition, the bright colors and thriving flowers also connect to Western commodification, suggesting how “the exotic” is a Western construct that has been fetishized and desired. The inspiration for at least one backgrounds in the series came from textiles found at the Sahara market in Rio, and perhaps this design may have been found in a similar place.² I noticed that Wiley used this same floral background in a study for a painting called “Sidney da Rodra, Jr.” (2008), but it doesn’t appear in the final version, and a detailed image of this same floral background appears as an unlabeled plate at the beginning of the World Series: Brazil book.³ So Wiley was thinking about this background during this project and studying it, even though this painting wasn’t made (or perhaps finished?) until 2017.

The layered appearance of human figures and decorative patterns in Wiley’s paintings are an appropriate visual reminder of the layers of meaning and appropriation. Typically, Wiley’s paintings have a few elements from the background which extend out of their pattern to partially cover the clothing of the subject. This can be seen best on the t-shirt and the shorts of the “Indio Cuauhtemoc” figure by Wiley, which are partially covered with flowers. Such layers remind us that, despite the real life issues that Wiley addresses, he has presented them to us in a fictive environment to remind us that all the world is a stage and his “streetcast” models are actors.

1 Kimberly Cleveland, “Kehinde Wiley’s Brazil: The Past Against the Future” in Kehinde Wiley: The World Stage: Brazil by Kehinde Wiley (Roberts & Tilton, 2009), 26.

2 Kehinde Wiley, Kehinde Wiley: The World Stage: Brazil (Roberts & Tilton, 2009), 12.

3 Ibid., 4, 45.

A passionflower

Earlier this week I noticed, by sheer happenstance, that there are passionflowers growing next to the parking garage of my local library! I was thrilled at this discovery: I’ve never seen a passionflower in person before, but every year I teach my students about them. The passionflower was very familiar to many indigenous people located within Spanish and Portuguese territories during the colonial era, and Jesuit missionaries therefore decided to use this flower as a symbolic tool to teach indigenous people about the Passion of Christ:

• The ten petals reference the ten apostles, excluding Judas (who betrayed Christ) and Peter (who denied Christ)
• The pointed tips of the leaves were said to represent the Holy Lance, which pierced Christ’s side
• The spiral tendrils of the flower (not shown in photo above, but can be seen HERE) were compared to the lash of Christ’s scourging
• The radial filiments (shown above in violet) were seen as a representation of the crown of thorns
• Three stigmas (in center of flower) represent three nails. Five anthers (underneath stigmas, in green) represent the five wounds that Christ received. (He received four imprints from the nails and one from the lance.)¹

These flowers are very distinctive in appearance, and it makes sense to me that the Jesuits would incorporate this imagery into their artwork as well, so that the symbol could be used for didactic purposes within a more formal setting. So, for the past few years I have been on a quest to compile representations of passionflowers in Jesuit art and architectural decoration, primarily from the seven reductions (missions) located in Brazil and Paraguay. This has been difficult to do, due to the comparatively few extant examples of art from the missions in general, as well as the condition of such surviving objects. An entry on Wikipedia claims that the “flor de maracujá” (passionflower) was one of the most well-known decorative motifs in the missions, but I have yet to find a primary source or clear examples of digital examples online to support this claim (although I would like to think it is correct!). Here are some examples, however, that I think may be representations of passionflowers from Jesuit churches and/or missions:

• Detail above a pilaster at Jesús de Tavarangüé (now in Itapua, Paraguay)
• “Large stone flowers” (“grandees flores de pedra”) are described as having decorated the pilasters found within the living quarters on the reduction for the indigenous people
• Perhaps passionflowers are located on the retable from São Lourenço in Niterói, but I’d like to see higher resolution images of the flowers to make sure.

Detail of doorway at San Ignacio Mini, Argentina, 1727

Gauvin Bailey discusses the carving of a passionflower on the Jesuit reduction church of San Iganacio Mini in Argentina. He doesn’t specify where this passionflower is located or its appearance in this particular source, but I wonder if he may be referring to the stylized flowers in the lower corners of the carved doorway panel shown above (the blossoms bell out from the tails of the fantastic winged figures).

Apart from the Jesuits, passionflowers also captured the attention of other artists. Often the passionflower is used in a religious (and perhaps sometimes moralizing) context, but it also appears in secular contexts as well. Here are some other representations of the passionflower in Latin American art:

Detail of fresco mural, lower cloister wall from monastery of San Salvador at Malinalco, Mexico, 16th-18th century

Scholar Jeanette Favrot Peterson believes that the flower represented above is a stylized version of the passionflower from a fresco mural wall in the Augustinian monastery of San Salvador at Malinalco, Mexico.²

Detail of doorway at San Ignacio Mini, Argentina, 1727

Our Lady of Mercy with Saints of the Order, 18th century. Archivo Museo de la Merced, Santiago

In a fascinating argument, Camila Mardones Bravo argues that this representation of Our Lady of Mercy (Virgen de la Merced) is depicted as emerging from a hybrid flower that contains characteristics of two separate flowers: the rose and the passionflower.

Albert Eckhout, detail from “Still Life with Watermelons, Pineapple and Other Fruit,” 1640

The Dutch painter Albert Eckhout depicted the passionflower a few times in the paintings he created during his time in Brazil, including the one above from Still Life with Watermelons, Pineapple and Other Fruit (detail shown above). In this context, it appears that he is just scientifically presenting the passionflower as an example of the flora of Brazil. Eckhout is also thought by some to be responsible for similarly-scientific representations of Brazilian life, and he may have even been responsible for the depiction of the passionflower in Willem Piso and Georg Marcgraf’s Natural History of Brazil (see below):³

Albert Eckhout (?), ‘Passion fruit’ in “Historia naturalis Brasiliae…,” by Willem Piso and Georg Margraf, 1648

In other visual contexts though, apart from these scientific representations, I think that Eckhout may have been including the passionflower as an allusion to sin and suffering. The passionflower also appears in his ethnographic portraits of a Tapuya and mameluke woman, with the flower prominently appearing in the basket held by the mameluke and on the tree to the left of the Tapuya woman.

I think that the inclusion of the passionflower in these two contexts needs more consideration, and possibly more research. On one hand, Eckhout may be recognizing the importance of the passionflower (and more specifically, the passionfruit) within indigenous cultures for medicinal and sedative properties, as well as food. Eckhout also may be celebrating and highlighting the local flora within these works of art. However, I also wonder if there may be some sort of moralizing message in connection with these flowers, since there are symbolic ways in which these women are cast in a negative light (as uncivilized and/or savage, for example).⁴  Of course, there are overwhelmingly positive connotations with the passionflower itself (in its connection to Christ), so I wonder if these flowers also could have served as symbol of the civilizing influence of the (Christian) Dutch on these indigenous groups.⁵

On a side note, I wanted to mention that the passionflower continued to be important in Brazilian culture after the colonial era. In 1938 the poet Alfonso de Guimaraens, a Mineiro, wrote the poem “A Passiflora” which compares a devout person’s soul to a passionflower.

Are you familiar with any representations of the passionflower in Latin American art? If you know of any more, please share! This post is really more of a “post-it” than a post; I feel like there is much more research that can be done on this topic!

1 The symbolic connections between the passionflower and the Passion of Christ are discussed by several authors from the colonial Baroque period, including Juan Eusibio Nieremberg. See Evonne Levy and Kenneth Mills, eds., Lexikon of the Hispanic Baroque: Transatlantic Exchange and Tranformation (Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 2014), p. 299. Available online HERE.

2 Jeanette Favrot Peterson, The Paradise Garden Murals of Malinalco: Utopia and Empire of Sixteenth-Century Mexico (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014), 87-89. Available online HERE.

3 Amy Buono,  “Interpretative Ingredients: Formulating Art and Natural History in Early Modern Brazil,” in Journal of Art Historiography 11 (December 2014): 1.

4Rebecca Parker Brienen, Visions of Savage Paradise: Albert Eckhout, Dutch Painter in Colonial Brazil (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006), 120-127, 162-168.

5 About fifteen years after Eckhout painted these works of art, Antonio de León Pinelo wrote a book El paraíso en el Nuevo Mundo (1656) in which he claimed the passionfruit must have been the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. He writes, “For what greater proof that this was the fruit of sin, and that caused the punishment, which found in His flower the most precious signs of forgiveness?”) “¿Pues qué mayor prueba de que esta fruta fue la del pecado, y la que ocasionó el castigo, que hallarse en su Flor las más presisas señales del perdón?” (citation found HERE). I wonder if there were other connotations that carried over to Europe before Pinelo’s writing, and perhaps if any other symbolic associations with this flower (both associated with sin and forgiveness) could be applied to Eckhout’s work.

Baptiste Debombourg, Triumphal Arch, 2001. Cardboard boxes, glue, strings, scotch tape. Height 5.3 m (approx 17.38 feet)

This morning one of my students shared with me a Tumblr page with images of Debombourg’s Triumphal Arch, which is largely comprised of cardboard boxes. My student commented that this disposable monument reminded him of the temporary triumphal arches that we discussed in our class on colonial Brazilian art.¹ I am curious as to whether Debombourg recycled used boxes for his construction. If he did, I think this would be an interesting contrast between our environmentally-conscious society and the colonial conquerors who initially perceived Latin America to be a land of abundant, limitless resources.

Anyhow, by coincidence, later this morning I came across another triumphal arch in the new art history textbook that I am reading (edited by Kim W. Woods). The text discusses the monumental arch that Dürer created for Emperor Maximilian (see below). This huge arch was printed on paper using 192 woodblocks, and was intended to be a wall decoration, kind of like a substitute for a tapestry or wall painting.

Albrecht Dürer, "Arch of Emperor Maximilian," 1515-17, colored woodcut. 357 x 295 cm (approx. 11.7' x 9.67')

Although these two arches are very different for a lot of reasons, I can’t help but think about how these arches have some interesting similarities. The both are created on a monumental scale. They both are “constructed” works of art, either with physical boxes or with the woodblocks which comprised Dürer’s final print. Even the small print on some Debombourg’s boxes has an interesting parallel with Dürer’s print: the latter has complicated Latin inscriptions which would have been hard to read, not to mention the complex compositions which would have been equally difficult to view.²

Curiously, both works of art have an interesting element of “reproducibility.” Dürer’s arch was originally printed in 700 sets, and later was reissued in more than 300 sets by one Archduke Ferdinand, one of Maximilian’s grandson.³ Ferdinand’s son Charles, in turn, also reissued sets of the arch. Dürer was able to reproduce his work through the relatively-new technological invention of the printing press. Likewise, Debombourg’s arch has been similarly “reproduced” over and over through blogs, tweets, and Tumblr “likes” (for starters, just look at the list on the Tumblr site that I included above).

It is interesting to think about how the Internet has assumed a “reproducibility function” for art, a function which for a long time was partially the responsibility of the printing press. Artists no longer become famous through distributing physical copies (i.e. prints) of their art. Instead, artists and viewers can place images on the Internet, and let those images (or the links to those images) reproduce themselves. Lately, when I have visited a museum gallery, I have been struck by how many people (including myself) are taking images of art with their cellphone cameras. It is phenomenal to consider how many works of art are “reproduced” via digital images each day.

Considering the widespread fame which Dürer achieved in his lifetime with physical copies of his prints, one can only imagine what mind-boggling fame he might have achieved if he lived in the Internet age. And I would bet that Dürer would have relished every moment of it.

1 Although we don’t have examples of temporary triumphal arches from Brazil, there are some descriptions that exist in documents. We can learn a little about how temporary triumphal arches appeared in Latin America by looking at a Spanish American painting of a viceroy “entrada.” Look on the far right side of Melchor Pérez Holguín’s, “The Entrance of the Viceroy Morcillo into Potosí,” 1716.

2 Kim W. Woods, ed., “Art and Visual Culture, 1100-1600: Medieval and Renaissance,” (London: Tate Publishing), 181-82.

3 Ibid., 181.

Modified (slightly cropped) depictions of Eckhout's series of eight figures (c. 1641). Top row (L-R): "Tapuya Man," "African Man," "Tupi Man," "Mulatto Man." Bottom row (L-R): "Tapuya Woman," "African Woman," "Tupi Woman," "Mameluke Woman." Oil on canvas. Each painting is approximately 8'9" x 5'4" (about 274 x 167 cm). Click on collage to see paintings in greater detail.

I am just about to finish teaching a course on colonial art in Brazil. At the beginning of the course, my students and I explored the brief period in the 17th century when the Dutch were located in northern Brazil (1624-1654). We explored how the Dutch artist Albert Eckhout depicted the flora, fauna and people of Brazil – and then we discussed how Europeans developed misconceptions about Brazil, based on how other European artists appropriated the imagery from Eckhout’s original works of art.¹

Eckhout, "Tapuya Woman," 1641

I particularly like Eckhout’s series that depicts people from eight types of minority groups found in colonial Brazil (shown above). I’ve had an affinity for these ethnographic paintings since graduate school, when I wrote a paper on Eckhout.  For one thing, I think these paintings are an interesting contrast with the “casta” paintings that were created in Spanish America during the colonial period. Eckhout’s paintings also have historical value as well: this series contains the only available representations of the Tapuyas (Tarairius), a group which had died out by the beginning of the nineteenth century. Due to Eckhout’s portraits, we have some visual information about the physical aspects and material culture for this specific Amerindian group (see above).²

We don’t know where these paintings were originally located. I personally like the argument that these portraits originally were intended to be displayed in Brazil, probably at governor Johan Maurits’ Vrijburg Palace in Mauritsstad (now Recife). Although there are no seventeenth-century documents to support this theory, I like the visual analysis that has been explored by Rebecca Parker Brienen to support this theory.³ In fact, this is the argument that I explored with my students earlier in the quarter.

In order to be objective, though, I have been keeping up with some other scholarship on these paintings. Such theories and analyses are discussed in the fabulous book, Albert Eckhout: A Dutch Artist in Brazil.⁴ I wanted to recap some of the ideas that interest me:

• Some scholars suggest that these paintings were never created in Brazil, but were based on compositions and drawings that Eckhout had made while in Brazil. This argument is partially made because the large-scale canvases are in good condition, as opposed to the still life paintings by Eckhout which were transported in the seventeenth-century. However, it is unclear as to whether the still life paintings were damaged when they were moved from the Netherlands to Denmark (in 1654), or in an earlier transport from Brazil to Europe (p. 32).
• The spelling of Eckhout’s name in the series “signatures” differs from documents signed by Eckhout, which suggests that someone else added the signatures. Verified documents are signed by “Albert Eeckhout” but these paintings are signed as “Albert Æckhout” (p. 110). The questionable nature of the signature is supported because the painting of the mameluke is unfinished (see cashew fruit in lower right corner), but still bears a signature and date. Additionally, these questionable signatures explicitly state that the paintings were made in Brazil, which is unusual (p. 32). It is thought that the signatures may have been added when these paintings were presented to the Danish monarch Friedrich III (a distant cousin of Johan Maurits) in 1654 (p. 124).
• It is important to note that the series of paintings were not shown as an ensemble in the Mauritshuis (the European house of Johan Maurits) after Maurits returned in the Netherlands in 1644. There would not have been enough wall space for these large portraits, due to either fireplaces or rhythmic partitioning of the wall (p. 35).
• It has been suggested that Eckhout’s series might have been cartoons for tapestries. We know that other paintings by Eckhout were intended to be used for tapestries, including at least eight paintings that Maurits gave to Louis XIV. (p. 35-36).

I think it’s good to be familiar with the other ideas that exist about this portrait series; I might cover more of these points with students when I teach this same course again. But personally, I think that Rebecca Parker Brienen still gives a pretty solid argument for why these paintings were intended to be created in Vrijburg Palace (in Brazil). At least, it’s the best (and most comprehensive) argument I have yet to see. The Buvelot text even mentions that “the uncertainty about the original purpose of the paintings makes it difficult to arrive at an in-depth interpretation, especially where the figure pieces are concerned.”⁵ Until more convincing in-depth interpretations and theories are presented, I’m going to have my art history students continue to explore Brienen’s argument.

1 See discussion about misconceptions and the European usage of Eckhout’s imagery in Virginie Spenlé, “‘Savagery’ and ‘Civilization’: Dutch Brazil in the Kunst- and Wunderkammer,” in JHNA 3, no. 2 (2011). Available online here: http://www.jhna.org/index.php/past-issues/volume-3-issue-2/142-spenle-dutch-brazil

2 Quentin Buvelot, ed., Albert Eckhout: A Dutch Artist in Brazil (Zwolle: Waanders Publishers, 2004), 66.

3 Rebecca Parker Brienen, Visions of Savage Paradise: Albert Eckhout, Court Painter in Colonial Dutch Brazil (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006), 181-199.

4 See Buvelot, 32-36. See also a specific chapter in the Buvelot text: Florike Egmond and Peter Mason, “Albert E(e)ckhout, Court Painter,” in Albert Eckhout: A Dutch Artist in Brazil (The Hague: Mauritshuis, 2004), 109–27, esp. 110.

5 Ibid., 35. This text was before the 2006 publication by Brienen, but the text does cite earlier publications by Brienen.