Dutch still lifes and colonial visual culture in the Netherlands Indies,1800-1949

This article examines Dutch still lifes in the Netherland's oldest and most prestigious overseas possession, the Netherlands Indies (colonial Indonesia), during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Early-modern scholars have cogently argued that Dutch flower pieces from the seventeenth century typically reflected georgic discourses on human mastery over nature. However, three centuries later flowers were largely absent from colonial still lifes: painters and photographers were more inclined to depict tropical fruits, a preference which reflects the development of modern colonial discourses of an abundant tropics, where nature flourished even in the absence of cultivation. Such notions were commonly employed by Europeans in Southeast Asia to justify the need for colonial intervention in the tropics while minimizing the role of Asian labour in enriching European economies. (Author abstract).