This is the catalogue for the exhibition that marked the Quincentennial commemoration at the National Gallery of Art. The purpose of the exhibition and catalogue was to document the cultural activities of the Age of Exploration—the fifteenth century in Europe, the Mediterranean, eastern Asia, and the Americas—with more than five hundred objects, including paintings, sculpture, drawings, maps, scientific instruments, weapons, and decorative and religious items. This tremendous volume of more than six hundred pages contains hundreds of first-quality reproductions of art, maps, and drawings, along with explanatory texts and introductory essays. It is a treasure for scholars and interested readers alike and an ideal souvenir of the Quincentenary year.
The visual evidence for the cultural complexity of the Age of Exploration can be found not only in objects of aesthetic value but in scientific objects as well. Cartography, “the proto-science for explorers,” was making great progress in the fifteenth century, and the maps, charts, and compasses in the exhibition are all monuments to the new empirical spirit of exploration, complementing the fine-art works of painting, drawing, and sculpture. From the Renaissance art of Leonardo da Vinci and Albrecht Dürer to the art of Japan, China, and India, and then across to the New World, the exhibition presents a kaleidoscopic array of styles. Each civilization is presented on its own terms, not from a European perspective. The catalogue introduces each of its three main sections (“Europe and the Medieval World,” “Toward Cathay,” “The Americas”) with a map and an essay by an eminent scholar in the field. More than 30 superb additional essays by historians, art historians, and anthropologists expand upon the catalogue entries as they examine the art and history of each cultural area. Particularly notable are the contributions of Daniel J. Boorstin, Jonathan C. Brown, Sherman E. Lee, and Michael D. Coe.
This cultural voyage begins appropriately with “The World of the Catalan Atlas” of 1375. As the journey expands to distant lands, the catalogue reveals exotic peoples and their objects of ritual and pride. The European views of these mysterious populations can be seen through illustrated maps, codices, histories, and bibles. An essay on “Early European Images of America: The Ethnographic Approach” by Jean Michel Massing in the third section offers a valuable summation of the variety of “pictures” throughout the text. It is a provocative discussion that helps the reader reevaluate the true identity of those newly discovered peoples and the significance of their “art.” It also invites the reader to return to the beginning of the book and look again.
