10
ART, SCIENCE, AND POWER IN
SIXTEENTH-CENTURY DUTCH
CARTOGRAPHY
Abstract The history of Dutch cartography in the sixteenth
century is often explained in terms of the opposition between
cartography as Art and cartography as Science. It is our conten­
tion that this polarization is flawed, based as it is an artificial
divide fully established only in the nineteenth century. Between
these extremes lies a conceptual vacuum which hides the ideo­
logical meaning of the map. Our alternative is to see maps as
a form of power-knowledge.
Cartography, like painting, is the record of a subjective
domain. Map-makers classify and select knowledge to be pres­
ented or to be omitted; they state their own involvement in a
complex world. Our contention is that maps can also become
active agents, helping to impose a reality they pretend merely
to mirror.
The history of Dutch cartography in the sixteenth centu­
ry is often explained in terms of a theory in which art
and science are in opposition to each other. Two domi­
nant interpretations can be identified. The first is based
on the notion that the sixteenth century straddles an
evolutionary discontinuity between the "picture map"
and the surveyed or "scale map." 1 The second maintains
that "science claimed cartography," 2 banishing art to the
margins of the map where it survived as an aesthetically
pleasing but harmless form of decoration. However, this
artificial divide between art and science was fully defined
only in the nineteenth century 3 ; it is a conceptual habit
which inhibits our interpretadon of both individual maps
and, more generally, the effects of maps in society.
Instead we suggest a reevaluation, taking the nineteenth-
century conception as our point of departure but recog­
nizing that in both the arts and sciences scholars have
J B HARLEY, who died 20 December 1991, was Professor of" Geography
at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, and Director of the Office
for Map History, American Geographical Society Collection. KEES
ZANDVLIET is Head of the Maps and Drawings Department, General
State Archives. The Hague, Netherlands. This article is based on a
paper that was presented by the first author at the 78m Annual Confer­
ence of the College An Association, New York City, 17 February 1990.
Paul Laxton (Department of Geography, University of Liverpool. P.O.
BOX 147, Liverpool L69 3BX, U.K.), Brian Harley's literary executor, has
reviewed and given his approval to the publication of this paper. MS
submitted January 1992; revised ms submitted April 1992
CARTOGRAPHICA Vol 29 No 2 SUMMER 1992 pp 10-19
J B H A R L E Y AND KEES Z A N D V L I E T
University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee,
United States and General State Archives,
The Hague, Netherlands
rejected approaches which separate society from aesthet­
ics, and have abandoned the concept of value-free knowl­
edge.
In the words of Fredric Jameson, the nineteenth-centu­
ry polarization of a n and science has limited our "ideo­
logical consciousness, [marking] the conceptual point
beyond which that consciousness cannot go, and be­
tween which it is condemned to oscillate."4 Our alter­
native is to characterize maps as a form of "power-knowl­
edge" in Foucault's sense, 5 a power that is "omnipres­
ent." 6 Such a standpoint helps us better to read maps as
humanly constructed images of the world, and as possess­
ing a reflexive role within the context of early modern
society.7
Patterns of Interpretation
Traditional approaches to the history of cartography
have fluctuated between the twin stereotypes of art and
science. Particular maps and individual map-makers (in
a biographically oriented mode of history that tends to
eulogize the well-known names - Mercator, Ortelitis,
Hondius, Van Deventer, and so on) are awarded merit
points in a progressive cartography. This is a historio­
graphy full of "monuments" and "landmarks," culminat­
ing, in the Dutch case, in a "Golden Age" in the seven­
teenth century. For some Dutch scholars, map-making
forms a chapter in the patriotic history of the birth of
the Dutch state as it was freed from the political and
religious domination of Spain. The maps expressed the
assertion by the seven Northern Provinces of their cultur­
al independence centred around the economic miracle
of Amsterdam.
That the rise of cartography in the sixteenth-century
Low Countries is linked to a scientific and technological
revolution is a standard interpretation, Louvain was the
centre where mathematicians, instrument makers, and
globe makers had gathered. Antwerp and then Amster­
dam were the cities where this theoretical knowledge
found practical expression. Even in the sixteenth century
we can trace the origins of a belief in objectivity in the
conceptual language of map-makers. The "role of truth,"
Mercator wrote to Ortelius, was neglected in many maps,