Four continents
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Europeans in the 16th century divided the world into four continents: Africa, America, Asia and Europe.[1] Each of the four continents was seen to represent its quadrant of the world—Europe in the north, Asia in the east, Africa in the south, and America in the west. This division fit the Renaissance sensibilities of the time, which also divided the world into four seasons, four classical elements, four cardinal directions, four classical virtues, etc.
Europeans were only dimly aware of the Ural Mountains, which divide Europe from Asia in the eyes of the modern geographer, and which represent the geological suture between two fragmentary continents, or cratons. Instead, the division between these continents in the European-centered picture was the Hellespont, which neatly separated Europe from Asia. From the European perspective in the Age of Discovery, beyond the Hellespont, Asia began with Asia Minor, where the Roman province of Asia had lain, and stretched away to unimaginably exotic and distant places— "the Orient".
In the 16th century America too was full of exotic promise: the "New World".
In 1603, Cesare Ripa published a book of emblems for the use of artists and artisans who might be called upon to depict allegorical figures. He covered an astonishingly wide variety of fields, and his work was reprinted many times. It was still being brought up-to-date in the 18th century. The illustrations reveal fixed Eurocentric perceptions of the nature of the "four corners of the world." Ripa's Europe (illustration, left) is the land of abundance (cornucopia) of kings and the pope, whose crowns and the papal tiara lie at her feet, and of cities.
Africa, by contrast (illustration, below right) wears the elephant headdress (worn by rulers depicted on Hellenistic Bactrian coins) and is accompanied by a lion, the scorpion of the desert sands and Cleopatra's asps. Asia (illustration, right), the seat of Religion, carries a smoking censer as a camel takes its ease.
And the iconic image of America (illustration, below left) shows a Native American maiden in a feathered headdress, with bow and arrow. Perhaps she represents a fabled Amazon from the river that already carried the name.
The American millionaire philanthropist James Hazen Hyde, who inherited a majority share in Equitable Life Assurance Society and formed a collection of allegorical prints illustrating the Four Continents that are now at the New-York Historical Society; Hyde's drawings and a supporting collection of sets of porcelain table ornaments and other decorative arts illustrating the Four Continents were shared by various New York City museums.
The Renaissance associated one major river to each of the continents. The Four Rivers theme appears for example in the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi in the Piazza Navona in Rome.
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[edit] See also
- Continent
- Four rivers
- Seven seas
[edit] Notes
- ^ Nothing was known of Australia, first sighted in the eighteenth century, or Antarctica, first sighted in the nineteenth century.
[edit] External links
- The Four Continents
- Hemisphere Maps
- The Universe Divided into Fours
- Guide to the James H. Hyde Collection of Allegorical Prints of the Four Continents
[edit] Reference
- Honour, Hugh, The New Golden Land: European Images of America from the Discoveries to the Present Time. New York: Pantheon Books, 1975. An exhibition based on the book's premise was curated by Honour at the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1975-77.
