#dutchmen

17th to 18th century A.D. - Past History WMAF # 6 - Dutch, Portuguese, American 🇳🇱🇵🇹🇺🇸 and Japanese 🇯🇵

Here illustrated in periodic Japanese art, the very first depictions of European men and East Asian women together. In this post there are present various portraits of European and American sailors, merchants and traders with Japanese civilian women and courtesans. These artworks made by artists from Japan and found in various scrolls and paintings from over 200 and 300 years ago, showcase White men and Edo Period women interacting, sharing drinks, kissing and making love to each others

Pieter de Hooch, A Woman preparing Bread and Butter for a Boy, c. 1660, 68 x 53 cm, Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum, digital image courtesy of the Getty's Open Content Program

In Amphitrite’s forbidden tides We raise a glass to men Who ventured to Bermuda’s point And ne’er were seen again Their mind wiped clean of earthly joys They shan’t set toe to sand But trust, the fright sea Dutchmen strike Will make you favor land!

A rough sketch conceptualizing the Dutchmen, one of the main monsters featured in Seven Seas.

A curse cast by the sea queen Amphitrite upon anyone who enters the forbidden Bermuda Triangle, a Dutchman’s transformation is far from painless.  After being cursed, the victim has two weeks to watch themselves devolve into a senseless, ruthless creature of the depths.

In final form, Dutchmen are blind (sensing ships through their keen desire for the scent of gunpowder), driven mindlessly towards destruction, and forbidden from ever stepping on land again.  Glowing triangles on their wrists mark Amphitrite’s hold on them, and so far, there’s no remedy for her curse.