Maps of the world, full of visions

Geography: everyone made a list of where he or she was at some point, ascending from street, city, region, country, continent to world and finally the universe. On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Royal Geographical Society (KNAG), the Allard Pierson in Amsterdam dedicates the exhibition Open map – From atlas to streetmap to the dizzyingly rich property of the KNAG, which the Allard Pierson has managed since 1879. The guiding principle is that realization from small to large, from one’s own street name to universe. A brilliant idea. In 1513 the Netherlands appears as Holandia in Ptolemy’s atlas in the extreme western corner of Germania with cities such as Amsterdam, Nijmegen and Leeuwarden. It is one of the earliest printed landmarks in our country.

The exhibition opens close by, with a newly acquired wall map of Amsterdam by Van Berckenrode from 1625. The city unfolds in three dimensions with unprecedented detail. Maps not only show the existing world, they also show visions. Take the 1857 map of the plan to build a bridge from the Damrak straight across the IJ to Noord. Even houses are drawn under the bridge deck. If this had become reality at the time, what would the city have looked like? In any case, no Central Station on the IJ.

Maps and works of art are close together, as the ‘Elevation map of the Netherlands’ by the Topographisch Bureau from 1865 shows. At the time, people already knew: if the tide is high, half of the Netherlands will disappear under water. It is not a threatening map, rather reassuring with dark blue for the sea water, light blue for the river water and yellow for safe land. Topography here is almost equivalent to aesthetics.

Another exhibition, in the National Archives in The Hague, is entitled On the map – Look at the world then and now with maps. Here, contemporary photos show what is depicted on the historical maps, which form only a small proportion. Unlike the Allard Pierson, the National Archives offers austerity, not radiant exuberance.

Colonial maps with their complex context play a major role in both exhibitions, which is not surprising for a country like ours. These are often maps made by the colonizer, but the National Archives also owns eleven maps made by Indonesian artists.

Wonderful synthesis

A beautifully designed, extremely rare map in pastel shades depicts Tingkir District in the Semarang Regency of Java, dated April 15, 1825. The compass rose on the map points south. In the high mountains below the city we see rivers, a straight road with milestones, bridges, a volcano like Mount Merapi depicted as an ash-gray circle, bridges and hundreds of desas (settlements) that are depicted as leaf-shaped, abstract figures.

Presumably this map, made by or for a district chief, served to determine the taxes that the villages owed to the Dutch colonial government. Each district has its own color. This map forms a beautiful synthesis between European and Javanese maps. An 1803 western map shows more or less the same regency. This map is also oriented to the south. The similarities strongly suggest that the Javanese makers knew the Dutch maps, a detail such as the compass rose is already significant.

We also see colonial maps of Indonesia and Surinam in the Allard Pierson. That of Suriname with plantations and military ‘Togten’ (expeditions) from 1737 is on display in both exhibitions. The card is dedicated to the ‘Noble Grootagtbaare Heeren Burgemeester der Stadt Amsterdam mistgaders Governor of the VOC’. Yes, with this knowledge you look differently at Van Berckenrode’s excessively wealthy city of Amsterdam from the seventeenth century, with the fleet of the West and East India Company on the roads.

Not only does art and cartography meet on the Javanese map of the Tingkir district (in the current city of Salatiga), the hand-drawn ‘Plattegrond der Plantage Adrichem’ from 1775 in the Allard Pierson is also remarkably painterly. Those numbered and legendted rectangular boxes in green, red, orange and yellow bear witness to a mathematical regularity. The abundance of greenery represents the ‘Coffee Grounds’. The small, red blocks at the bottom of the map symbolize the ‘Negro houses’. There is also a hospital, a ‘Waschhuis’ and a ‘Timmer Loots’.

This map and several others, such as those of the military expeditions, show in a disturbing way how slavery worked in the colonies: as an extremely organized and orderly discipline. The simplicity is insidious and served for the clients at home with the aim: everything is under control. This view teaches us to look more closely at the deeper meaning of the map image.

Open map – From atlas to streetmap. Allard Pierson, Amsterdam. Until 16/7. Inl: allardpierson.nl

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On the map – Look at the world then and now with maps. National Archives, The Hague. Still until 22/3. Inl: nationalearchief.nl

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