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Βίλεμ Γιανς Μπλάου
(1571 - 1638) |
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Willem
Janszoon Blaue (1571 - 1638) |
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Willem Janszoon Blaue (1571
- 21 October 1638), also abbreviated to Willem Jansz.
Blaeu, was a Dutch cartographer, atlas maker and
publisher. He was one of the notable representatives of
the Netherlandish/Dutch school of cartography in its
golden age (the 16th and 17th centuries).
Blaeu was born at Uitgeest or Alkmaar. As the son of a
well-to-do herring salesman, he was destined to succeed
his father in the trade, but his interests lay more in
mathematics and astronomy. Between 1594 and 1596, as a
student of the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, he
qualified as an instrument and globe maker. In 1600 he
discovered the second ever variable star, now known as P
Cygni.
Once he returned to Holland, he made country maps and
world globes, and as he possessed his own printing
works, he was able to regularly produce country maps in
an atlas format, some of which appeared in the Atlas
Novus published in 1635. In 1633 he was appointed
map-maker of the Dutch East India Company. He was also
an editor and published works of Willebrord Snell,
Descartes, Adriaan Metius, Roemer Visscher, Gerhard
Johann Vossius, Barlaeus, Hugo Grotius, Vondel and the
historian and poet Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft. He died in
Amsterdam.
He had two sons, Johannes and Cornelis Blaeu, who
continued their father's mapmaking and publishing
business after his death in 1638. Prints of the family's
works are still sold today. Original maps are rare
collector items.
Blaeu's 1630 map of Europe.
Blaeu's maps were featured in the works of the Dutch
painter Johannes Vermeer of Delft (1632–1675), who holds
a position of great honor among map historians. Several
of his paintings illustrate maps hanging on walls or
globes standing on tables or cabinets. Vermeer painted
these cartographical documents with such detail that it
is often possible to identify the actual maps.
Evidently, Vermeer was particularly attached to a Willem
Blaeu – Balthasar Florisz van Berckenrode map of Holland
and West Friesland, as he represented it as a wall
decoration in three of his paintings. Though no longer
extant, the map's existence is known from archival
sources and the second edition published by Willem Blaeu
in 1621, titled Nova et Accurata Totius Hollandiae
Westfriesiaeq. Topographia, Descriptore Balthazaro
Florentio a Berke[n]rode Batavo. Vermeer must have had a
copy at his disposal (or the earlier one published by
Van Berckenrode). Around 1658 he showed it as a wall
decoration in his painting Officer and Laughing Girl,
which depicts a soldier in a large hat sitting with his
back to viewer, talking with a smiling girl who holds a
glass in her hand. Bright sunlight bathes the girl and
the large map on the wall. Vermeer's gift for realism is
evidenced by the fact that the wall map, mounted on
linen and wooden rods, is identifiable as Blaeu's 1621
map of Holland and West Friesland. He captures
faithfully its characteristic design, decoration, and
geographic content. |
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