Report from Europe.

Brazilian culture

The year 2000 marked the five hundredth anniversary of the arrival in Brazil of Pedro Alvares Cabral (c. 1467-1520), a Portuguese explorer. Among the exhibitions in Britain to celebrate various aspects of Brazilian culture and history is Opulence and Devotion: Brazilian Baroque Art, which is on view at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford until February 3. The seventy works in this show were made for display and veneration in churches, public places, and the home. The rituals of the Catholic Church were central to public and social life in Brazil in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with festivities and ceremonies marking wartime victories, royal events, and religious feast days.

The visual impact of churches was of paramount importance, and the indigenous population learned quickly and well how to create sumptuous statues and ornaments that rivaled any in Portugal. The colony was relatively wealthy and embellishments with precious metals and jewels became the norm. Private chapels were built on far-flung plantations, and these too were decorated to impress.

Brazilian culture of a different type is examined at the British Museum in London in an exhibition entitled Unknown Amazon: Culture in Nature in Ancient Brazil, which is on view until April 1. It focuses on the Amazon River basin and the culture that flourished there long before the arrival of the Portuguese. Recent archaeological and ethnographic research has shown that indigenous Amazonian groups can no longer be stereotyped as isolated communities living in the depths of the forest or dispersed along the riverbanks. This perception arose when the population was displaced by the first contact with Europeans. Before that, Amazonian society was productive and both socially and politically complex. Religion, strongly linked to natural forces, played a vital part in daily communal life and resulted in sophisticated works of art in a variety of mediums. Ceramics, feathers, wood, shells, and other natural materials were used to create objects that were both attractive and utilitarian. The bones of the dead, for example, were placed in large urns made in the shape of seated figures, serving to connect the living with the dead. Personal adornment was an intrinsic part of Amazonian culture, and some examples such as loincloths and headdresses survive, while other adornments such as tattoos are known only from artworks.

The curator of Opulence and Devotion is Catherine Whistler; who edited the accompanying catalogue. It may be ordered by telephoning Arthur Schwartz and Company at 1-800-669-9080. The curators of Unknown Amazon are Colin McEwan, Christiana Barreto, and Eduardo Neves, who edited the catalogue to their exhibition. It may be ordered by telephoning 44-20-7323-1234. Both exhibitions are part of a program of events organized by BrasilConnects.

A detailed look at Delft

At a conservative estimate there were some thirty-five sizeable potteries operating in and around Delft, the Netherlands, over the course of the seventeenth century, making fin-glazed earthenwares that mimicked the Chinese porcelain imported by the Dutch East India Company Each of these potteries employed at least sixty potters in addition to a significant number of painters. For the past two hundred years scholars have been engaged in matching the maker's marks on objects to the potteries and estimating dates of manufacture.