Region: Suriname
Bibliography
Primary sources
English Archival Material, 1643-1895. Microform 9 Microfilm Reels. From Koninklijke Bibliotheek.
Freudenreich, F. Lettres écrites d'un fils à son pere, au sujet du voyage de Surinam. Amsterdam, 1739.
Greenwood, Isaac and John Greenwood. Diaries, 1752-1765 Diary. From New York Historical Society, Greenwood Family Papers.
Merian, Maria Sibylla. Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium. Amsterdam, 1705. Reprinted with introduction by Chris Schriks and translation by Dr. P. A. Van der Laan. Zutphen, Netherlands: Walburg Press, 1982.
Maria Sibylla Merian, an artist and naturalist who contributed greatly to the modern understanding of entomology, published her Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium, in both Dutch and Latin, in 1705. This version of the text is largely in Dutch with an English translation of Chris Schriks introduction. Additionally, each plate is accompanied by a short summary in English of the longer explanatory texts written in Dutch by Merian. These English texts focus largely on description of the fruits, plants, and insects depicted in the plates. Quite often, Merian uses common or easily recognizable European food stuffs to give readers a point of reference to understand the unfamiliar. Many of Merian’s descriptions also include an overview of how the indigenous population prepared and uses the fruits and plants she depicts. These descriptions give the reader an insight into the Dutch perception of Surinamese customs, especially those concerning eating and food preparation. Finally, the scholar interested primarily in visual culture should note that this volume is beautifully illustrated, presenting full-page reproductions of Merian’s drawings. [Lauren M. Freese]
Stedman, John Gabriel. Narrative of a five years' expedition, against the revolted negroes of Surinam, in Guiana, on the wild coast of South America; from the year 1772, to 1777: elucidating the history of that country, and describing its productions ... with an account of the Indians of Guiana, & negroes of Guinea. 2 vols. London: Printed by J. Johnson, St. Paul’s Church Yard, & J. Edwards, Pall Mall, 1796.
John Gabriel Stedman, a member of a prominent Scots family, travelled to Suriname in 1773 and remained until 1778. At this time, the Dutch were considered particularly harsh slave-masters. Stedman's observations reveal him to be sympathetic to the plight of the slaves and also of all women in the colonies. In addition, he shows an obvious interest in nature. The narrative includes a wide variety of illustrations, including detailed maps, typologies of different kinds of slaves, detailed representations of plants and animals, landscapes, and also depictions of specific events. Interestingly, Stedman relates a number of stories alluding to the poor treatment of slaves, some with accompanying illustrations. One particular aspect of his story that added to its popularity was the love story of Stedman and a slave, Joanna, who is depicted in an illustration. His account was widely read and seems to have contributed to rising moral resistance to slavery throughout Europe. By the end of the eighteenth century, it had been translated from English into German, French, and Dutch. [Ashley Mason]
Van Berkel, Adriaan. Amerikaansche voyagien, behelzende een reis na rio de Berbice, gelegen op het vaste land van Guiana, aande wilde-kust van America mitsgaders een andere na de colonie van Suriname, gelegen in het noorder deel van het gemelde landschap Guiana ondermengd met alle de byzonderheden noopende de zeden, gewoonten, en levenswijs der inboorlingen, boom- en aardgewassen, waaren en koopmanschappen, en andere aanmerkelijke zaaken. Amsterdam: Johan ten Hoorn, 1695.
---------. Adriaan van Berkel’s Travels in South America Between the Berbice and Essequibo Rivers and in Suriname, 1670-1689. Amsterdam: Johan ten Hoorn, 1695. Reprinted with translation and preface by Walter Edmund Roth. Georgetown, British Guiana: The Daily Chronicle, 1948.
Published in 1948, this volume was the first English translation of Adriaan van Berkel’s early life in Suriname. Dr. Walter Edmund Roth, a noted anthropologist and the translator of the text, completed his translation in 1922, more than twenty years before its publication. In his preface, Dr. Roth addresses the fact that van Berkel likely copied a great deal of his writings from George Warren’s An Impartial Description of Surinam, taking care to note that van Berkel’s contributions are both relevant and useful nevertheless. Accompanied by engravings of the plates from the original text in addition to a route map, this translation is also valuable as a source of visual imagery. This translation also includes footnotes explaining specific geographic locations and an index. Van Berkel divided his work into thirty-one short chapters, each with a number of specific subject headings that prove useful to assist the reader in navigating the text. [Lauren M. Freese]
Warren, George. An Impartial Description of Surinam Upon the Continent of Guiana America. London: Printed by William Godbid for Nathaniel Brooke, 1667.
This brief account of Suriname was presented without illustrations by George Warren in 1667. Warren claims to have personally observed everything he reports at great risk to his person, noting that the “delights of the Warm Countries” are accompanied by many dangers (A2). His first chapter, “Of the River,” opens with a detailed description of the location, depth, and size of the river, perhaps to bolster his claims of an “impartial description.” The second chapter, “Of the Climate and Country in General,” is lengthy in comparison to the first and included a much more detailed overview of Warren’s observations. “Of the Provisions” presents a highly-exoticized account of local vegetation and its uses which is continued in Warren’s fifth chapter, “Of the Fruits.” Prior to his return to the fruits of the area, the author describes local animals in “Of the Birds.” This chapter goes far beyond the description of Surinamese birds and includes a variety of animals including monkeys and jungle cats. His descriptions of plants and animals continue for a number of short chapters, chapter eight, however deals with the slaves of Suriname. Warren is rather critical in his overview of the poor treatment of these people he writes are “sold like dogs” (19). The longest and final chapter, “Of the Indians,” is an account of the local population and its customs. As a primary source, this text is useful for a wide variety of researchers, offering textual descriptions of a diverse variety of conditions and commodities. [Lauren M. Freese]
Warren, George. Een onpartydige beschrijvinge van Surinam, gelegen op het vaste landt van Guiana in Africa, 1669. From Pieter Arentsz. Boeckverkoper inde Beurstraet, in de drie rapen.
Secondary sources
Historical Context:
Benoit, P. J. Voyage à Surinam: description des possessions Néerlandaises dans la Guyana. Bruxelles: Société des Beaux-arts De Wasme et Laurent, 1839.
Blakely, Allison. “Historical Ties among Suriname, the Netherlands Antilles, Aruba, and the Netherlands.” Callaloo 21, no. 3 (1998) 472-477.
This relatively brief article is dedicated to an overview of the historical context that shaped the development of both art and literature in regions of the Caribbean with a tradition of Dutch influence. The author first makes a case for including Suriname, a country very clearly located on the South American continent, as part of the Caribbean. Blakely argues that the heterogeneous makeup of Suriname, due in part to the history of Dutch presence in the region, invites a unique geographic interpretation. Following a brief overview of the activities of the Dutch West India Company in the Caribbean, Blakely separates his article into sections dedicated to Suriname, the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba, and the Netherlands. The section focused on Suriname articulates the relationship between Brazil and Suriname, especially as it relates to the Dutch struggle for control of the region. Blakely also notes that Suriname was a “true” plantation economy under Dutch control, stating that at the beginning of the eighteenth-century, slaves made up ninety percent of the population. The final paragraph of the article concludes with a discussion of Surinamese history in the 1980s. Blakely is a professor of History and African American Studies and is interested in comparative history and the black diaspora. In 2010 he was appointed by president Barak Obama to a six-year term on the National Council for the Humanities. [Lauren M. Freese]
Counter, Allen S., and David L. Evans. I Sought My Brother: An Afro-American Reunion. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1981.
Drescher, Seymour. “The Long Goodbye: Dutch Capitalism and Antislavery in Comparative Perspective. American Historical Review 99, no. 1 (February 1994): 44-69.
Seymour Drescher, a professor and historian specializing in the study of slavery and abolition, especially as it relates to the Atlantic region, is a respected authority in the field. His, “The Long Goodbye: Dutch Capitalism and Antislavery in Comparative Perspective,” focuses on the slow, and relatively late process of emancipation in the Dutch colonies. While the focus of this piece is not strictly the abolition of slavery in Suriname, it serves as a model for future study and as an excellent foundational source for those interested in the study of the role of slavery in the Dutch empire. A key theme throughout Drescher’s text is the role of capitalism and its direct impact on the process of emancipation. Drescher notes that slave labor was “economically viable throughout the age of emancipation,” suggesting that slave labor was, in fact, not economically inferior as many contemporary abolitionists argued (46). A large portion of Drescher’s study is dedicated to the author’s navigation of the economic support of abolitionism with a focus on the conceptualization of the economic impact of slavery in the Netherlands. Intriguingly, Drescher argues there were “few antislavery arguments and no abolitionist movements” in the Netherlands during the seventeenth- and eighteenth-centuries (49). The lack of such movements, especially in consideration of contemporaneous movements in other countries in Europe, opens a line of discussion concerning the Dutch influence abroad. Relevant here is the fact that neither the health of the seventeenth-century Dutch economy nor its decline during the late eighteenth-century stimulated a significant antislavery movement in the Netherlands. Drescher used this fact to call to question the assumption of the primary role of the economy in generating an abolitionist dialogue, pointing instead to collective behavior and a growing interest in the rights of individuals. This article is valuable to scholars considering Suriname as a starting point in research of the abolition of slavery and as a means to facilitate the discussion of the driving forces behind abolitionist thought, especially as it related to the Dutch global presence. [Lauren M. Freese]
Goslinga, Cornelis Ch. The Dutch in the Caribbean and in the Guianas, 1680-1791. Assen, Netherlands: Van Gorcum, 1985.
This text serves a a through historical account of the presence of the Dutch in the Caribbean between 1680 and 1791; these dates align with the foundation of the West India Trading Company in 1675 and its official end in 1791. Goslinga, a historian who specialized in the Dutch presence in the Atlantic region, provides a brief overview of this rise and decline in the first chapter of the text. While the whole volume is a valuable source of background informing for those interested in this broad historical and geographical setting, Goslinga’s chapters entitled “The Colonists and the Society of Suriname,” “Surinam: Plantations Colony,” “The Suriname Maroons,” “The Suriname Slave Trade,” “Essequebro and Demerara,” “The Berbice Slave Rebellion,” and “A Tale of Two Cities: Willemstad and Paramaribo” are of great interest to scholars specifically interested in the relationship between the Netherlands and Suriname. Goslinga is commended by Kiple for his including of a great amount of detail, much of which is the result of extensive archival research at The Hague, providing the reader with a great deal of information that is not easily accessible to the general public. [Lauren M. Freese]Reviews available for consultation:
Kiple, Kenneth F. Reviewing The Dutch in the Caribbean and in the Guineas, 1680-1791, by Cornelis Ch. Goslinga. American Historical Review 94, no. 3 (June 1989): 903-904.
Oostindie, Gert. Reviewing The Dutch in the Caribbean and in the Guineas, 1680-1791, by Cornelis Ch. Goslinga. Bulletin of Latin American Research 6, no. 1 (1987): 96-97.
Hiss, Philip Hanson. Netherlands America: The Dutch Territories in the West. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1943.
Jones, Guno. “‘When we became poor, we became Surinamese:’ Class and the Construction of Dutch Identity in Suriname.” Thamyris 7, no. 1/2 (Summer 2000): 215-224.
Moore, Bob. “Decolonization by Default: Suriname and the Dutch Retreat from Empire.” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 28, no. 3 (2000): 228-250.
This article details the author’s interpretation of the historical developments leading to the declaration of Surinamese independence from the Dutch in 1975, driven largely by international political pressure rather than a strong desire for independence from the inhabitants of Suriname. Moore, a professor of twentieth-century European history and a member of the Centre for Dutch Studies at the University of Sheffield, provides an overview of the economic and social state of the country in the 1930’s as the reality of decolonization became apparent. At this time, the economy was largely dominated by plantation agriculture and the demographic makeup was decidedly diverse, both of which are the result of the prolonged Dutch presence in the area. Other key issued addressed include developments concerning suffrage in Suriname, the political representation of citizens of Suriname, and, most extensively, the debates concerning Surinamese independence. The author details both the Dutch and Surinamese perspectives concerning independence and tracks the changes of these developments. While this article does not focus on the Dutch presence in Suriname during the seventeenth-century, it does examine the lasting effects of this relationship. [Lauren M. Freese]
Oostindie, Gert. Paradise Overseas: The Dutch Caribbean Colonialism and its Atlantic Legacies. Warwick: University of Warwick Caribbean Studies, 2005.
Oostindie, a historian specializing in socioeconomic and Latin American history with an emphasis on Dutch colonial history, decolonization, and slavery, organizes this historical text around the “unfounded expectations” of the Dutch concerning the Caribbean. He argues that colonies in Suriname and other areas of this region largely disappointed the expectations of the Dutch, padding the pocketbooks of only select individuals. A key theme that runs throughout the text is that of slavery and abolition and its relationship to Dutch colonization. Many of the chapters contain sections dedicated exclusively to Suriname, providing an in-depth analysis of topics including ethnic identity, decolonization, and nationalism. [Lauren M. Freese]Reviews available for consultation:
Chevannes, Barry. Reviewing Paradise Overseas: The Dutch Caribbean Colonialism and its Atlantic Legacies, by Gert Oostindie. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 13, no. 2 (June 2007): 510-511.
Maingot, Anthony P. Reviewing Paradise Overseas: The Dutch Caribbean Colonialism and its Atlantic Legacies, by Gert Oostindie. European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 80 (April 2006): 104-106.
---------, ed. Fifty Years Later: Antislavery, Capitalism and Modernity in the Dutch Orbit. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996.
This compilation, edited by historian Gert Oostindie, contains eight chapter-length responses Seymour Drescher’s “The Long Goodbye: Dutch Capitalism and Antislavery in Comparative Perspective,” originally published in 1994 and annotated above. Prefaced by an introduction detailing the history of abolition in the Dutch colonies, the main question the text seeks to address is why emancipation was not declared until 1863. Three chapters are of interest to scholars specifically interested in the relationship between the Netherlands and Suriname; Edwin Horlings' “An Economic Explanation of the Late Abolition of Slavery in Suriname,” Alex van Stipriaan’s piece entitled “Suriname and the Abolition of Slavery,” and Gert Oostindie’s “Same Old Song?” Each chapter of the text, including the introduction and the epilogue, is accompanied by substantial bibliographic entries. [Lauren M. Freese]Review available for consultation: Blakely, Allison. Reviewing Fifty Years Later: Antislavery, Capitalism and Modernity in the Dutch Orbit, edited by Gert Oostindie. American Historical Review 102, no. 5 (December 1997): 1503-1504.
Postma, Johannes. “Suriname and Its Atlantic Connections, 1667-1795.” In Riches from Atlantic Commerce: Dutch Transatlantic Trade and Shipping, 1585-1817, edited by Johannes Postma and Victor Einthoven, 287-322. Boston, Massachusetts: Brill, 2003.
This chapter focuses on an in depth investigation into the shipping, commercial traffic, and transportation of commodities between Suriname and the Netherlands. Postma, a professor of European and African history, organized this research by investigating six factors that he argues contribute to Suriname’s economic significance; location, trade between the Dutch Republic and Suriname, transport of goods between North America and Suriname, the slave trade, Surinamese exports to Europe and North America, and Suriname’s contributions to the economy of the Dutch Republic. A key feature of this chapter that may be of use to researchers seeking specific data is the author’s use of archival information derived from over eight thousand maritime voyages. Major themes in the chapter include the role of the slave trade between Africa and Suriname, the volume of tropical exports with a Surinamese connection, and the nature of the relationship between North America and Suriname. Postma closes the chapter with a disclaimer concerning the great loss of life, both African slaves, native Surinamese, and Europeans, that occurred as a result of this branch of trans-Atlantic trade. [Lauren M. Freese]Review available for consultation:* Eltis, David. Reviewing Riches from Atlantic Commerce: Dutch Transatlantic Trade and Shipping, 1585-1817, edited by Johannes Postma and Victor Einthoven. Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 32, no. 3 (September 2004): 125-126.
*Please note that this review is of the text as a whole and is not dedicated to Joannes Postma’s contribution.
Price, Sally, and Richard Price, eds. Stedman’s Surinam Life in an Eighteenth-Century Slave Society: An Abridged, Modernized Edition of ‘Narrative of a Five Years Expedition against the Revolted Negros of Surinam.’ Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.
Van Oers, Ron. “Paramaribo: A Dutch Town on the Coast of Tropical Suriname.” World Heritage Review, no. 29 (2003): 68-79.
Van Oers describes the history, character, and conservation of the city of Paramaribo, Suriname. Paramaribo is a unique wooden city planned and built in the area called the World Coast by Dutch traders along the Suriname River. The city layout was planned by Surinam’s first Governor, Van Sollelsdijck, in 1683, and the Dutch drained the area by constructing an extensive canal system. The watery network was useful for the transport of goods because the area was a center of agriculture populated by sugar cane and tobacco plantations – over 600 at the height of economic activity. During the late eighteenth century many of the plantation owners moved into the city and built grand residential houses with tree lined streets and cultural life flourished. The abolition of slavery led to a rapid decline of plantation life and scores of freed slaves immigrated to Paramaribo adding more diversity to the city. While some of the prominent buildings are constructed from brick or stone, most of the structures are wooden. Conservators are challenged by timber structures because the material is susceptible to weather, insects and fire. The problem of restoration became a major issue in 1994 as city officials mulled the prospect of making a bid to become a UNESCO World Heritage site. The concern of whether the feasibility of saving Paramaribo monuments was a practical notion if necessary funds could be identified. Eventually they did propose a conservations strategy for the project and the historic inner city of Paramaribo was added to the World Heritage List in June 2002. [Nathan Popp]
Vrij, Jean Jacques. “Maroons, Futuboi and Free Blacks: Examples of Akan Immigrants in Suriname in the Era of Slavery.” In Merchants, Missionaries & Migrants : 300 Years of Dutch-Ghanaian Relations, edited by I. Van Kessel, 110--119. Amsterdam; Accra, Ghana: KIT Publishers ; Sub-Saharan Publishers, 2002. Annotation
Jean Jacques Vrij give a detailed account of the the history of African's in Suriname in the 17th and 18th centuries, which while scant in art history and analysis is rich in historical information. Around 215,000 people brought from Africa to Suriname in the 17th and 18th century. Despite significant ethnic and political divisions were regarded as belonging to one national group referred to as the 'Kormantignse natie."1 Around 20 percent of Suriname's African population live in Paramaribo, with a significant number of free Africans. However, the vast majority of Africans were enslaved and lived and worked on the plantations to the south and east of Paramaribo. Finally just over 10 percent of the African population, the maroons, lived in the hinterlands where the went after escaping the Dutch plantations. In 1760 they signed a peace treaty with the Dutch government that recognized their independence, but also committed them to turn over new fugitives that escaped from the plantations. In the 18th century the scarcity of white immigrants forced an easing of segregation. In the last decades of the 18th c. free African men of mixed ancestry gradually moved in to positions of relatively high social status. Vrij notes a similar distinction between slaves, with Creole slaves who had been born in Suriname greatly preferred;over "zoutwaternegers" (Salt Water negroes) or "nieuwe negers" (New negroes).2 Vrig spends a long time addressing the integration of the Coromantee nation which he treats as a case study for African integration in Suriname's society. He concludes, "In the 18th century the Coromantee nations was a living reality in Suriname, to which many people could be said to belong. Due to a process of intermixing with people from other parts of Africa, Creoles and whites, the Coromantees eventually disappeared as a distinctive identity in Suriname."31 Jean Jacques Vrij, “Maroons, Futuboi and Free Blacks: Examples of Akan Immigrants in Suriname in the Era of Slavery.” In Merchants, Missionaries & Migrants : 300 Years of Dutch-Ghanaian Relations, edited by I. Van Kessel, 110--119. (Amsterdam: KIT Publishers ; Sub-Saharan Publishers, 2002), 111
2 Virj, 112
3 Virj, 118
[Tyler E. Ostergaard]
Wiarda, Howard J. The Dutch diaspora: Growing up Dutch in New Worlds and the Old: The Netherlands and its Settlements in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2007.
This quasi-scholarly publication is admittedly part historical account, part social scientific study, and part colloquial travelogue on The Netherlands and its former colonial empire. Dr. Howard J. Wiarda, a professor of international relations at the University of Georgia, explores the Netherlands and its colonies and, along with his personal account of and his reflections on his own Dutch heritage, seeks to understand how the former Dutch colonies reacted to the ideological beliefs implanted by the Dutch settlers. Employing the Louis Hartz colonial model as his theoretical framework, Wiarda demonstrates how those former Dutch colonies evolved in terms of their cultural, religious, and political beliefs. In his introduction, Wiarda explains the basic ideologies professed by Hartz (a Harvard historian and political scientist) who argued that once various European colonies (henceforth known as “fragments”) were settled, they reflected the European epochs in which they were founded. Yet, these fragments failed to continue to evolve in the same ways as did Europe as a whole (3). After his personal travels to and exploration of the various Dutch colonies, Wiarda concludes that the Dutch influence is increasingly less dynamic and vigorous and more a matter of purely historical interest in previously distinct Dutch fragments throughout the world (219). Wiarda’s book generally follows a chronological history as well as a chronological history of his own journey of self-discovery. See chapter seven, specifically pages 92 to 102 for his perspective on the Dutch presence in Suriname. [Amanda Strasik, edited by Lauren M. Freese]
Maria Sibylla Merian:
Blumenthal, Hannah. “A Taste for Exotica: Maria Sibylla Merian’s Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium.” Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture 6, no. 4 (2006): 44-52.
Hannah Blumenthal, an art historian, sets Maria Sibylla Merian’s Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium within the historical context of the introduction of commodities like sugar to Europe and the role of the Dutch in this rapidly-developing industry. Following a brief biographical account of Merian’s education and career, Blumenthal notes the conspicuous absence of sugarcane in Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium. The author argues that Merian’s depictions of fruits and vegetables allowed viewers to visually experience the exotic in comparison to local produce. This introductory information gives way to Blumenthal’s main argument, that “fruit components . . . of Merian’s work serve as a metaphor for and a manifestation of her audience’s desire to assimilate foreign foods into their diet and their larger cultural appetite for exotica during the colonial period” (46). In support of this argument, the author briefly investigates Merian’s depictions and explanations of edible flora including her anthropological discussions of the usage of certain commodities by the local population and comparisons in flavor and usage between Surinamese and European produce. Finally, Blumenthal elucidates notable shared characteristics between Merian’s depictions of produce and spices as exotica and the concept of the Kunstkammern or cabinets of curiosities. This article provides a unique perspective on Merian’s drawings and watercolors and may be useful for scholars considering the economic conditions of the time or the pan-European interest in the exotic. [Lauren M. Freese]
Davis, Natalie Zemon. Women on the Margins: Three Seventeenth-Century Lives. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1995.
Zemon Davis, a highly-respected historian focusing on European history and feminist studies, presents the lives of three women, Glikl Bas Judah Leib, Marie de l’Incarnation, and Maria Sibylla Merian. Following the author’s imagined dialogue between these three women and herself discussing the very book their “dialogue” prefaces, Davis devotes one lengthy chapter to each figure. The chapter on Maria Sibylla Merian, entitled “Metamorphoses,” discusses the artist’s basic biography while developing a connection between Merian and the other two women represented in the text. Working from primary sources as her starting point, Davis delves into the lives of these early modern women, focusing particularly on how they represented themselves in their writing and the relationship between their work and that of contemporaries, generally men, working in the same fields. Each of the three chapters sets the woman within a social and religious context, interspersed with relevant biographical details. The concluding chapter undertakes a comparison between the three women and includes a discussion of the reception and usage of their writing after their deaths. While the information Davis presents concerning the life and work of Maria Sibylla Merian is useful to a scholar interested in such matters, this text also serves as an illustration of a novel methodological approach to history, judged successful by the majority of critics. [Lauren M. Freese]Reviews available for consultation:
Adams, Christine. Reviewing Women on the Margins: Three Seventeenth-Century Lives, by Natalie Zemon Davis. Journal of Social History 30, no. 2 (Winter 1996): 541-543.
Blaisdell, Charmarie J. Reviewing _Women on the Margins: Three Seventeenth-Century Lives_, by Natalie Zemon Davis. Church History 65, no. 4 (December 1996): 714-715.
Kupperman, Karen Ordahl. Reviewing Women on the Margins: Three Seventeenth-Century Lives, by Natalie Zemon Davis. Journal of Modern History 69, no. 4 (December 1997): 804-805.
Ranum, Orest. Reviewing Women on the Margins: Three Seventeenth-Century Lives, by Natalie Zemon Davis. American Historical Review 102, no. 3 (June 1997): 808-810.
Wiener-Hanks, Merry. Reviewing _Women on the Margins: Three Seventeenth-Century Lives_, by Natalie Zemon Davis. Sixteenth Century Journal 27, no. 4 (Winter 1996): 1145-1147.
Etheridge, Kay. “Maria Sibylla Merian and the Metamorphosis of Natural History.” Endeavor 35, no.1 (2010): 15-21.
Hochstrasser, Julie Berger. “The Butterfly Effect: Embodied Cognition and Perceptual Knowledge in Maria Sibylla Merian’s Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium.” In The Dutch Trading Companies as Knowledge Networks, edited by Siegfried Huigen, Jan L. de Jong, and Elmer Kaolin, 59-101. Leiden: Brill, 2010.
This compilation is the result of a multidisciplinary conference held in 2008 at the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden. Each essay was required to enter into a scholarly dialogue utilizing Harold Cook’s Matters of Exchange: Commerce, Medicine, and Science in the Dutch Golden Age (2007) as a starting point. Julie Berger Hochstrasser, an art historian specializing in seventeenth-century Dutch painting, comments on the role of embodied cognition in relation to Maria Sibylla Merian’s contributions to European scientific understanding. Her argument draws heavily on the ideas pioneered by Benedict Anderson regarding the “imagined community” and Bruno Latour regarding epistemology (60, 62). Hochstrasser grapples with the colloquialism, “you had to be there,” as it has been recently been academically defined as dynamical systems theory, embodied cognition, and situated learning, three somewhat divergent concepts which all access the idea that cognition is the result of the interaction between an individual’s mind and the larger environment (67). The most basic level of the relationship between Merian’s work and embodied cognition is explicitly defines by the fact that she needed to be in Suriname in order to process the knowledge she obtained in the way she did: her personal experience was integral to her final product. In reference to Merian’s visual representations of her observations, Hochstrasser notes that “no amount of verbal description could ever communicate the complexity of their (Merian’s specimens) patterns, so meticulously recorded in Merian’s image; this remains decidedly within the realm of perceptual knowledge” (69). This essay provides a useful framework for the study of the observation of new cultures and information, addressing problems including the arrangement of specimens on a page, decisions concerning what information to include or exclude, and the pragmatic issues associated with translation and transportation of knowledge and samples. As a whole, Hochstrasser’s analysis is of interest to scholars interested not only in Maria Sibylla Merian, but anyone concerned with the development of knowledge networks and the evolution of scientific knowledge as it relates to visual imagery.Review available for consultation:* Vink, Markus P. M. Reviewing The Dutch Trading Companies as Knowledge Networks, edited by Siegfried Huigen, Jan L. de Jong, and Elmer Kaolin. Journal of Early Modern History 15, no. 6 (2011): 587-591.
*Please note that this review is of the text as a whole and is not dedicated to Julie Berger Hochstrasser’s contribution.
[Lauren M. Freese]
Reitsma, Ella. Maria Sibylla Merian & Daughters: Women of Art and Science. Amsterdam: The Rembrandt House Museum, 2008.
This richly-illustrated text published in conjunction with an exhibition of the same name, curated by art historian and author Ella Reitsma, was shown at The Rembrandt House Museum and the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The catalogue seeks to add to the growing body of literature dedicated to Merian by considering not only her artistic and scientific legacy, but that of her daughters. Reitsma newly attributes two works to Merian while reattributing works previously though to be of Merian’s hand to her daughters. These attributions are accompanied by what the author claims to be new biographical information in addition to a study of the working methods of Merian and her daughters. Of particular interest to scholars interested in Surname are Reitsma's three chapters dedicated specifically to Merian’s relationship with this geographic region, “Suriname: ‘A Hot, Wet Land,’” “Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium: Three Different ‘Hands,’” and “Paramaribo and St. Petersburg: Conclusions.” [Lauren M. Freese]Reviews available for consultation:
Peacock, Martha Moffit. Reviewing Maria Sibylla Merian & Daughters: Women of Art and Science, by Ella Reitsma. Woman’s Art Journal 31, no. 2 (Fall/Winter 2010): 65-67.
Schiebinger, Londa. Reviewing Maria Sibylla Merian & Daughters: Women of Art and Science, by Ella Reitsma. Eighteenth-Century Studies 42, no. 2 (Summer 2003): 626-628.
Todd, Kim. Chrysalis: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis. Orlando, Florida: Harcourt, 2007. Available Review of Text
Wettengl, Kurt, ed. Maria Sibylla Merian 1647-1717: Artist and Naturalist. Translated by John S. Southard. Ostfildern, Germany: Verlag Gerd Hate, 1998.
First published in German in 1997 as the result of the exhibition organized by the Historisches Museum in Frankfurt am Main for commemoration of the 350th anniversary of the artist naturalist’s birthday, the book is said to be the first to comprehensively chronicle the exquisitely rendered work of Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717). The book is divided into four sections besides introduction in the beginning and letters of Maria Sibylla Merian at the end, following a chronological and topographical order, placed in the cooperative and interactional context of art and science in our society since the latter half of the 20th century as well as the context of the history of natural science in the 17th and 18th centuries. Each section has a catalogue and an essay from art historical perspective, illuminating Maria Sibylla Merian’s life’s work from perspectives of biography, history and art. The articles include discussion of reception of Maria Sibylla Merian’s works in the 18th , 19th centuries and in the past forty years with a rediscovery of her artistic and scientific accomplishments; discussion on her most important book The Caterpillar’s Wondrous Metamorphosis and Particular Nourishment from Flowers (published in three parts in 1679, 1683 and 1717); her flower paintings; specific discussion of her two images in Stammbücher (albums of friendship and memories); the artistic and scientific motivations involved in the mostly commercial voyages of Dutch eastern and western colonies with examples such as Maria Sibylla Merian and Georg Eberhard Rumpf (South Mollucan island of Ambon); her work in Suriname The Metamorphosis of the Insects of Suriname; reception of Maria Sibylla Merian from the feministic perspective from the 18th century to present day, and Maria Sibylla Merian as a businesswoman and publisher. [Sicong Zhu] i Professor Wettengl got his PhD in art history at Marburg University and University Osnabrueck in 1983 and was appointed honorary professor in art history at Technical University of Dortmund in 2008.
Indigenous Surinamese Art and Dutch Views of Suriname:
Brienen, Rebecca Parker. “Embodying Race an Pleasure: Dirk Valkenburg’s Slave Dance.” In Body and Embodiment in Netherlandish Art, edited by Ann-Sophie Lehman and Herman Roodenburg, 242-264. Zwolle, Netherlands: Waanders Publishers, 2008.
This chapter, a contribution to the Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art 2007-2008, focuses on Dutch still-life painter Dirk Valkenburg’s time in Suriname where he served as both accountant and painter for Jonas Witsen II. Valkenburg was charged with the task of recording, from life, the flora and fauna of the region. In the process of executing this task, Valkenburg completed two paintings of African slaves in Suriname, one of which, Slave Dance, is the focus of Brienen’s chapter. After outlining the existing scholarship exploring with the work, Brienen goes on to argue that Slave Dance should be interpreted as “a rare and aesthetically pleasing” image for the commissioner’s collection (Brienen, 248). Valkenburg references the Dutch tradition of the inclusion of black slaves in still-life imagery as commodities associated with Dutch international trade and therefore as symbols of wealth and status. Through this idea, Brienen argues that Slave Dance can be interpreted as a still-life painting for a wealthy slave owner and collector, for whom slaves would have been little more than commodities. Brienen is an art historian specializing in early-modern visual culture, her other publications include articles and book-length texts dedicated to Georg Macgraf, Frans Post, and Albert Eckhout. [Lauren M. Freese]
Crowley, Daniel J. “The Art of Suriname: African Traditional Sculpture Transformed in the New World.” African Arts 16, no. 1 (1982): 82-83.
Price, Sally. “Always Something New: Changing Fashions in a ‘Traditional Culture.’” in Crafting Gender: Women and Folk Art in Latin America and the Caribbean, edited by Eli Bartra, 17-34. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003.
Price, Sally, and Richard Price. Afro-American arts of the Suriname Rain Forest. Los Angeles: Museum of Cultural History, University of California, 1980.
Written by two social anthropologists, this book calls into question the former views of “primitive art” that allowed the works of art to speak for themselves with little attention to the society(ies) from which these objects came. Through a perspective that unites interpretation and aesthetic appreciation, Professors Sally Price and Richard Price seek to present an “inside” view of Suriname Maroon arts that emphasizes considerable ethnographic discussions of native terms and categories (8). In their preface, Sally and Richard Price make it clear that their aims include much information about the historical development of the tribes in order to avoid isolating the Maroon culture in time. Price and Price assert that a stereotypical, ahistorical analysis of the arts of the Maroons “profoundly underestimate the creativity of Afro-Americans, their ability to adapt and reshape their collective pasts, and that in denying them a real history, such views ultimately serve to dehumanize [the Maroon peoples] (9).” The first two chapters feature an introduction to the history of the Suriname Maroons and their conceptions of art and aesthetics. The remaining chapters focus upon objects used for personal adornment, woodcarving, calabashes (a reference to the calabash tree that provides raw material for the creation of Maroon containers), performance, and iconography and social meaning. This publication accompanied a 1980 exhibition that was first presented at the Frederick S. Wight Art Gallery at the University of California in Los Angeles. Prices' work has been sharply criticized for having over-stressed the Maroons' creativity and emphasis on individuality while having neglected the African influence that helped to shape Maroon culture. [Amanda Strasik]Consulted source: Price, Sally and Richard Price. Afro-American arts of the Suriname Rain Forest. Los Angeles: Museum of Cultural History, University of California, 1980.
Available Reviews: Crowley, Daniel J. "Review: Afro-American Arts of the Suriname Rain Forest by Richard Price; Sally Price," in African Arts , Vol. 15, No. 1 (Nov 1981): 27; 80-81.
---------. Maroon Arts: Cultural Vitality in the African Diaspora. Boston: Beacon Press, 1999.
Anthropologists Sally and Richard Price are well-established experts on the art and culture of the Maroons of Suriname. This husband and wife duo opens their text with a somewhat colloquial discussion of their field work experiences which lead to the publication of this book. This chapter outlines the present-day lifestyle of the Maroon population and may be useful for any scholar newly considering this subject matter. The Maroons of Suriname, formerly termed Bush Negros, inhabit the heavily forested interior of the country. Throughout the text, the Prices consider a broad range of visual culture, including domestic architecture, hairstyles, designs baked into food products, textiles, carving, and much else. In their chapter “Art and Aesthetics,” the authors include a discussion on performance arts, highlighting local customs and traditions. “Cloths and Colors,” includes a discussion of textile patterns and production in addition to an analysis of popular cicatrization patterns among Saramaka women. Subsequent chapters focus on various aspects of Maroon visual culture, from calabash carving to musical instruments and their use. This text includes a substantial bibliography and extensive footnotes. It also includes good reproductions, although they are in black and white, of many of the examples discussed in the text. [Lauren M. Freese]Review available for consultation: Barnum, Elizabeth. Reviewing Maroon Arts: Cultural Vitality in the African Diaspora, by Richard and Sally Price. African Arts 33, no. 3 (2000): 13.
Modern and Contemporary Surinamese Art:
Scholchtern, Thomas Meijer zu, and Christopher Cozier, eds. Paramaribo SPAN: Contemporary Art in Suriname. Amsterdam: KIT Publishers, 2010.
Published in honor of the 145th anniversary of De Surinaamsche Bank in conjunction with an exhibition of the same same, this text seeks to promote an understanding of the current state of art in Surinam and to explore possibilities for future development. Paramaribo SPAN was edited by Thomas Meijer zu Schlochtern, the director of CBK Rotterdam, and Christopher Cozier, an artist and author based in Trinidad. The text is organized around interviews with twenty-seven Surinamese and Dutch artists supplemented with a variety of essays, literature excerpts, and high quality image reproductions, with the dual goal of highlighting the cultural similarities and differences between Surinamese and Dutch artists while providing an overview of the artistic climate in Paramaribo. Particularly pertinent to the study of interculturation and the cultural exchange between the Netherlands and Suriname is the section of the text entitled “Nation-Post Nation-Forget the Nation?” which contains a number of essays that address topics including globalism and the impact of colonialism. [Lauren M. Freese]
Van Binnendijk, Chandra, and Paul Faber. Twintig jaar beeldende kunst in Suriname, 1975-1995 (Twenty years of visual art in Suriname, 1975-1995). Paramaribo: Stichting Surinaams Museum, 1995.
This text, a museum catalogue published on the occasion of an exhibition of visual art in Suriname between 1975 and 1995, is presented in a dual language format with Dutch and English texts. Although the focus of the catalogue is not explicitly the Dutch presence in the country, it provides invaluable information including brief biographies of the artists included in the exhibition, an overview of the development of the visual arts in Suriname, and a great number of high-quality image reproductions. Many of these art works clearly reference Suriname’s Dutch colonial past and are of special interest to scholars interested in the lasting impact of this long period in Surinamese history. [Lauren M. Freese]
---------. Beeldende kunst in Suriname: de twintigste eeuw (Visual art in Suriname: the twentieth century). Amsterdam: Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, 2000.
This text “stands on the shoulders of the catalogue” Twenty Years of Visual Art in Suriname, adding the five years of artistic production between 1995 and 2000 to the new version. The authors are careful to note that the exhibition and catalogue themselves for 1995 are now a part of the history of Surinamese art. New additions to this edition include a few additions to the discussion of art in Suriname prior to 1975 and an emphasis on pioneering artists Wim bos Verschuur and Nola Hatterman. Most notable, however, is the addition of Surinamese art produced between 1995 and 2000. [Lauren M. Freese]