Antony van Leeuwenhoek / Antony van Leeuwenhoek /

(24.10.1632 - 26.08.1723)
Jan Vermeer was born in 1632 in Holland, the provincial Delft. Ibid, and died 43 years later. All his life, continuing his father's work, he bought and sold other people's pictures. Another draw their ... When life is not famous. There contemporaries vermeerovskaya "simple life" has not caused much excitement. Girl reading a letter, the gentleman offering the lady a glass of wine, thrush, a summary - it was hard to stand out and excel in these typical "Dutch" plot ... Vermeer opened only two hundred years. In 1866, French writer and art critic Tore-Byurzher published about the artist series of enthusiastic articles. Forgotten painter from Delft came to court a new era. Was time Impressionists. And who, no matter how they could appreciate the amazing vermeerovsky light envelop the people and objects, admire the refined technique of the point of applying the paint onto the canvas.
. Paintings "Astronomer" and "Geography" (1668-1669) stand somewhat apart and fall out of the ordinary for a number of Vermeer's genre scenes
. They were clearly intended as a pair - identical in size and devoted to one subject (the scientist, with a head who went to work). They represent, apparently the same person. According to one hypothesis, a famous naturalist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek. The one who first saw microbes, spermatozoa and ciliates slipper.
Lice In Stockings
A self-taught scientist Anton van Leeuwenhoek was coeval and compatriot Johannes Vermeer. He was soon given to the teaching of draper and soon became a self-traded textiles. Then he found himself in Amsterdam. He worked as a cashier and bookkeeper in a trading institutions. Later he returned to Delft and served as guardian of the Chamber.
In this seemingly unremarkable man who hid the heat of this researcher. All his life he wanted to "saturate as possible, his passion to penetrate the beginning of things". Even in his younger years Leeuwenhoek carried away by the unusual business - polishing glasses. He practiced this with such enthusiasm that soon reached the stunning results. Created them linzochki, no wider than a large pea, were able to increase the objects several hundred times. After his death in a working office, which he called the museum, found a whole collection: 172 lenses and 273 of the microscope.
Restless self-taught researcher interested in life - a drop of water, blood, meat in plates. One of the first he began to conduct experiments on himself, turning his own body into a kind of a walking laboratory. Blood, pieces of skin - all this was given in sacrifice science. He first saw the red blood cells (due to which, as was later proved, the blood is red in color). On the existence of sperm Leeuwenhoek also discovered the first. He experienced the effects of drugs, studied the allocation of an organism, depending on the quality of food eaten. And when it was necessary to find out peculiarities of reproduction of lice, he said, without hesitation, placed them in his stocking. Even dying, Leeuwenhoek remained true to himself, describes in detail the process of extinction of life in his body.
INSPIRES SWIFT
Leeuwenhoek was a pioneer of a new science - Microbiology. Wanting to know what forces in horseradish "act on the tongue and cause his irritation, he put a piece of root in water. Imagine his astonishment when he saw under the microscope in the water "huge number of tiny living creatures. Some of them have long been times in three or four more than in width ... Others had the correct oval. There was also a third type of organism, the most numerous - the smallest creatures with tails ". This bizarre world rodlike, spiral, spherical, with all sorts of spikes and cilia microscopic creatures consumed all the attention of researchers. For fifty years they have discovered more than two hundred species of microorganisms.
Results of experiments carefully recorded and sent to England. Pundits of the Royal Society in surprise shake their heads, studying reports. In the end, achieve Leeuwenhoek received official recognition. Academic self-taught in 1680 was elected a member of the Royal Society of London. Later he was accepted and the French Academy of Sciences. Discovery Leeuwenhoek became a real sensation. In Delft became curious flock to render microbes truly royal honors. Crowned heads bowed his crested head above the magic lenses, wanting a better look lady ciliates slipper. In 1698 held a commemorative meeting Leeuwenhoek with Peter I. Attended Leeuwenhoek and the famous English writer Jonathan Swift: familiarity with microorganisms inspired him to create "Gulliver's Travels."
. Friends from Delft
. Leeuwenhoek and Vermeer could not know each other - Delft was too small to have two well-known person of the baptized to the same in the same church, and almost overnight, without bowing to each other on the streets of his native city
. But two great Dutchman could well be close friends. Is no accident, after Vermeer's death is Leeuwenhoek was appointed his executor.
The artist and scientist clearly had common interests. American scholar Arthur Wheelock remarked that after 1655, when Leeuwenhoek carried away in astronomy and navigation, to Vermeer's paintings also appeared "methodically reproduced maps and globes". In "The astronomer, for example, with the maximum accuracy is depicted celestial globe Yodokusa Hondius (it was first published in 1660). You can even distinguish some of the constellations (left - the Big Dipper).
Leeuwenhoek and Vermeer could reconcile and interest in optics. Some features works by the artist (underlined perspective, blurring the foreground, lights flashing, almost square format) suggest a close acquaintance with the camera obscura, great-grandmother of modern camera. However, Vermeer, and if you enjoyed it, it is not as simple copyists. He was a researcher. With meticulous, comparable only to meticulous Leeuwenhoek, studying the unknown "substance", the artist studied, using the latest technological advances, the life of matter and light, trying to capture what they see.
. Leeuwenhoek could easily pose for two pictures, as well as act as a customer
. In 1668 he was thirty-five - the age, which fully corresponds to the exterior of a scientist at Vermeer. Although Anthony is not yet famous for his discoveries in microbiology, but it was known as an expert on astronomy and geography.
Preserved portrait of the naturalist John Brush Verkola, written in 1686. It seems that a scientist with Vermeer's paintings like Leeuwenhoek Verkola. It is necessary only to remove the wig and throw two decades.