Thonies, vissersboten in de baai van Galle Possibly 1786

Jan Brandes created "Thonies, vissersboten in de baai van Galle," a pen drawing with watercolor, around 1793. Immediately, the eye is drawn to the composition's layered structure. Several sketches of boats, varying in size, are arranged in neat rows, coupled with text as part of the visual field. The linear precision of the drawing underscores a documentary approach. This use of line, alongside muted colors, functions semiotically. Note how each boat presents a study in form and function, meticulously detailed yet also integrated into a broader schema of colonial observation and classification. There is a tension in how the artwork presents ethnographic detail while simultaneously organizing and categorizing human activity. Ultimately, the drawing offers a glimpse into the ways in which knowledge was gathered, ordered, and disseminated. It reflects the structuralist impulse to find underlying patterns and systems. In the colonial context, this ordering becomes not merely descriptive but also a mode of control.