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    Harley - Mapa e Arte Dutch 16 Century

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    Carla Monteiro Sales
    Sixteenth century Dutch cartography is often portrayed as either an art or a science, but this is an oversimplification. Maps served complex ideological functions and should be viewed as forms of "power-knowledge". Cartography involved subjective classification of knowledge and could shape reality. While maps reflected early scientific advances, they also imposed particular views of the world and asserted cultural independence for the Dutch Republic.

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    Harley - Mapa e Arte Dutch 16 Century

    Uploaded by

    Carla Monteiro Sales
    39 views1 page
    Sixteenth century Dutch cartography is often portrayed as either an art or a science, but this is an oversimplification. Maps served complex ideological functions and should be viewed as forms of "power-knowledge". Cartography involved subjective classification of knowledge and could shape reality. While maps reflected early scientific advances, they also imposed particular views of the world and asserted cultural independence for the Dutch Republic.

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    Harley_Mapa e Arte Dutch 16 century

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    Sixteenth century Dutch cartography is often portrayed as either an art or a science, but this is an oversimplification. Maps served complex ideological functions and should be viewed as forms of "power-knowledge". Cartography involved subjective classification of knowledge and could shape reality. While maps reflected early scientific advances, they also imposed particular views of the world and asserted cultural independence for the Dutch Republic.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    39 views1 page

    Harley - Mapa e Arte Dutch 16 Century

    Uploaded by

    Carla Monteiro Sales
    Sixteenth century Dutch cartography is often portrayed as either an art or a science, but this is an oversimplification. Maps served complex ideological functions and should be viewed as forms of "power-knowledge". Cartography involved subjective classification of knowledge and could shape reality. While maps reflected early scientific advances, they also imposed particular views of the world and asserted cultural independence for the Dutch Republic.

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    ART, SCIENCE, AND POWER IN J B H A R L E Y AND KEES Z A N D V L I E T


    SIXTEENTH-CENTURY DUTCH University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee,
    CARTOGRAPHY United States and General State Archives,
    The Hague, Netherlands

    Abstract The history of Dutch cartography in the sixteenth rejected approaches which separate society from aesthet­
    century is often explained in terms of the opposition between ics, and have abandoned the concept of value-free knowl­
    cartography as Art and cartography as Science. It is our conten­ edge.
    tion that this polarization is flawed, based as it is an artificial In the words of Fredric Jameson, the nineteenth-centu­
    divide fully established only in the nineteenth century. Between ry polarization of a n and science has limited our "ideo­
    these extremes lies a conceptual vacuum which hides the ideo­ logical consciousness, [marking] the conceptual point
    logical meaning of the map. Our alternative is to see maps as beyond which that consciousness cannot go, and be­
    a form of power-knowledge. tween which it is condemned to oscillate."4 Our alter­
    Cartography, like painting, is the record of a subjective native is to characterize maps as a form of "power-knowl­
    domain. Map-makers classify and select knowledge to be pres­ edge" in Foucault's sense, 5 a power that is "omnipres­
    ented or to be omitted; they state their own involvement in a ent." 6 Such a standpoint helps us better to read maps as
    complex world. Our contention is that maps can also become humanly constructed images of the world, and as possess­
    active agents, helping to impose a reality they pretend merely ing a reflexive role within the context of early modern
    to mirror. society.7

    The history of Dutch cartography in the sixteenth centu­ Patterns of Interpretation


    ry is often explained in terms of a theory in which art Traditional approaches to the history of cartography
    and science are in opposition to each other. Two domi­ have fluctuated between the twin stereotypes of art and
    nant interpretations can be identified. The first is based science. Particular maps and individual map-makers (in
    on the notion that the sixteenth century straddles an a biographically oriented mode of history that tends to
    evolutionary discontinuity between the "picture map" eulogize the well-known names - Mercator, Ortelitis,
    and the surveyed or "scale map." 1 The second maintains Hondius, Van Deventer, and so on) are awarded merit
    that "science claimed cartography," 2 banishing art to the points in a progressive cartography. This is a historio­
    margins of the map where it survived as an aesthetically graphy full of "monuments" and "landmarks," culminat­
    pleasing but harmless form of decoration. However, this ing, in the Dutch case, in a "Golden Age" in the seven­
    artificial divide between art and science was fully defined teenth century. For some Dutch scholars, map-making
    only in the nineteenth century 3 ; it is a conceptual habit forms a chapter in the patriotic history of the birth of
    which inhibits our interpretadon of both individual maps the Dutch state as it was freed from the political and
    and, more generally, the effects of maps in society. religious domination of Spain. The maps expressed the
    Instead we suggest a reevaluation, taking the nineteenth- assertion by the seven Northern Provinces of their cultur­
    century conception as our point of departure but recog­ al independence centred around the economic miracle
    nizing that in both the arts and sciences scholars have of Amsterdam.
    That the rise of cartography in the sixteenth-century
    J B HARLEY, who died 20 December 1991, was Professor of" Geography Low Countries is linked to a scientific and technological
    at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, and Director of the Office
    for Map History, American Geographical Society Collection. KEES
    revolution is a standard interpretation, Louvain was the
    ZANDVLIET is Head of the Maps and Drawings Department, General centre where mathematicians, instrument makers, and
    State Archives. The Hague, Netherlands. This article is based on a globe makers had gathered. Antwerp and then Amster­
    paper that was presented by the first author at the 78m Annual Confer­ dam were the cities where this theoretical knowledge
    ence of the College An Association, New York City, 17 February 1990. found practical expression. Even in the sixteenth century
    Paul Laxton (Department of Geography, University of Liverpool. P.O.
    BOX 147, Liverpool L69 3BX, U.K.), Brian Harley's literary executor, has
    we can trace the origins of a belief in objectivity in the
    reviewed and given his approval to the publication of this paper. MS conceptual language of map-makers. The "role of truth,"
    submitted January 1992; revised ms submitted April 1992 Mercator wrote to Ortelius, was neglected in many maps,

    CARTOGRAPHICA Vol 29 No 2 SUMMER 1992 pp 10-19

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