Found It!
Found it! That was my
exact quote as I drove a friend home after work. Downtown Ft. Myers has several
roadside curbings that jut out around trees. Unfortunately, some are just as
you turn a corner. Sure enough, as I turned a sharp corner and was as usual
chatting away, she reminded me of the obstacle. “Found It”! I shouted with navigational
skills on par with Christopher Columbus. The right side of the vehicle
ungracefully bounced over the concrete nuisance. But tree and passengers were all
safe.
Speaking of navigation,
I was recently requested to illustrate famous historical men responsible for great
exploration discoveries. The first two chosen were Bartholomew Diaz and Mercator.
The illustrations are acrylic on canvas board. For added fun, once photographed
the illustrations receive some animation.
Bartholomew Diaz depicted on the shore of Cape of Good Hope:
Bartholomew Diaz, a
Portugal Explorer, set sail in 1488. He was the first European to sail around
the southern most tip of Africa. He would establish the route from Europe to
Asia. The discovery of the passage around southern Africa was significant
because, for the first time, Europeans could trade directly with India and the
Far East, bypassing the overland Euro-Asian route with its expensive European,
Middle Eastern and Central Asian middlemen.
The Illustration
reflects Diaz on the shore of what is now known as the Cape of Good Hope.
Although Diaz originally named it the Cape of Storms (Cabo das Tormentas), it
would later be renamed by King John II of Portugal as the Cape of Good Hope (Cabo
da Boa Esperanca) because it represented the opening of a route to the east
Gerardus Mercator depicted with Netherland background and globe with rhumb lines:
Gerardus Mercator was
a 16th-century Flemish cartographer, geographer and cosmographer. He was
renowned for creating the 1569 world map based on a new projection which
represented sailing courses of constant bearing (rhumb lines) as straight lines.
The Mercator projection, a cylindrical map projection, is preferred by
navigators because the ship can sail in a constant compass direction to reach
its destination, eliminating difficult and error-prone course corrections. His
innovation is still employed in nautical charts.
Gerardus Mercator was
one of the founders of the Netherlandish school of cartography and is widely
considered the most notable figure of the school in its golden age
(approximately 1570s–1670s).
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