Forest History Society Photograph Collection
Sample Images: Brazil / FHS620th
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Image ID: FHS620
Image Date: 1904
Image Title: [Forest clearing and land settlement in Brazil.]
Image Caption: Change of Fortune: To a scene of his own country combined with an expression of sentiment the Brazilian artist, Weingartner, gives the title of "Change of Fortune." It represents the newness of a plantation just cleared in the forest of the artist's own section of Brazil, the State of Rio Grande do Sul. The smoke is still rising from the burning brush. Great logs and stumps cumber the ground. Almost surrounding the cleared tract rises the dense forest. In the distance is the cabin. The figures of the foreground are the man and the woman whom change of fortune has prompted to the work of establishing a new home in the wilderness. The appearance of the man on the barrow testifies to an unaccustomed occupation. The attitude is one suggestive of weariness and despondency. The wife has been aiding to the extent of her physical ability, even handling the hoe between the rows of the growing plants. She, too, has stopped. Resting one hand upon the top of the hoe handle, she looks upon the blisters in the palm of the other hand. The woman appeals to sympathetic interest even more than the man does. The painting tells a story of human vicissitudes full of pathos but in colors bright and in a scene which promises better days for the future. The vividness of the Brazilian verdure and the clearness of the atmosphere are not, but the spirit of the scene is, reproduced by the camera.
[This photo of Weingartner's painting was published in "The Forest City; Comprising the Official Photographic Views of the Universal Exposition Held in Saint Louis, 1904. Commemorating the Acquisition of the Louisiana Territory" (St. Louis, Missouri: N. D. Thompson, 1904. Introduction and descriptions by Walter B. Stevens).]
Photographer: Rau, William H.
Use Restrictions: Permission from the Forest History Society required for any use of this image.
Repository Contact Information: Forest History Society, Inc.; 701 William Vickers Ave., Durham, NC 27701; Tel.: (919) 682-9319; Fax: (919) 682-2349.
