Essence of Stillness

By reassessing Gerrit Schouten’s papier-mâché dioramas depicting the lives of enslaved and free Africans in early nineteenth-century Suriname, this article aims to complicate and challenge current and past reception of the artist’s life and work. A free person of color who has been dubbed “the most important artist in Suriname in the nineteenth century” as well as the first professional artist to emerge from the Caribbean, Gerrit Schouten’s manipulation of material form, perspective, and visual effect renders the multiple conflicting and overlapping temporalities inherent to slavery and Dutch Colonial society.