Blancpain L-Evolution Flyback Chronograph Black Dial Automatic Men's Watch 560STC-11B30-52B

WORLDTEMPUS - 4 April 2012
There are two heavenly bodies in the sky that have been defining the way we live for millennia. The motion of the sun and the moon have already been described by ancient astronomers with mathematical accuracy, thereby defining the units of time which one may call the natural year and the natural month or lunation. Without losing sight of the moon, Western civilization chose to follow the solar cycle in order to "build" the calendar we live by today and which had its last major changes applied in 1582. It was in this year that Pope Gregory XIII issued the famous "inter gravissimas" bull, thus giving birth to the Gregorian calendar and extinguishing the battered old Julian calendar implemented in 46 BCE by Julius Caesar himself. This was a move that obliviated ten days instantaneously thanks to a jump from the March 10 directly to the 21st of the same month.

Chinese civilization, on the other hand, is the only one that has developed and used two parallel calendar systems, thus, one might say, has enjoyed the best of both worlds: lunar and solar. The Chinese calendar is calculated according to a solar formula but fitted into a lunar calendar to make it a luni-solar calendar. Between one new moon and the next, there are not twenty-nine or thirty days, but rather twenty-nine and a half days, making the cumulative total eleven and a quarter days shorter than the three hundred sixty-five and a quarter days of the Western full year. Ergo, for a lunar calendar to be accurate it is necessary to insert a leap month much like the leap day of the solar calendar once every two or three years to catch up with the motions of the earth. Although the motions of the sun, moon, and planets are incommensurable, they fall into approximate harmony after certain periods, the most useful of which is a cycle of nineteen years (the Metonic cycle), which almost exactly equals two hundred and thirty-five lunations. Every nineteen years, the Chinese calendar contains seven intercalary or leap months in order to maintain its accuracy. In China, this cycle is called Chang, or a chapter, and it is in this fluctuation of the traditional Chinese year that the variable date of the Chinese New Year originates.

The Chinese calendar actually represents the longest unbroken sequence of time measurement in history. The first calendar, according to the Shih-chi or historical records written about 90 BCE, is attributed to Huang-ti or the Yellow Emperor (2697 BC), who ordered the court astronomers to study the stars. It was his minister Ta Nao who prepared the first calendar in what is called the Kan-chih or Chia-tzu system, which Western scholars have translated as "the system of cyclical characters."

Villeret Traditional Chinese Calendar
Until now, no watchmaking brand had tried to include this measure of days into a conventional wristwatch. With this purpose in mind, Blancpain developed the new automatic caliber 3638, a mechanical 434 part movement that includes three separate spring barrels responsible for creating a seven-day (168-hour) power reserve. To allow for the correct accounting of both the Gregorian and the traditional Chinese calendars, the pristine white enamel dial displays no less than ten indications. This is a task that Blancpain has fulfilled brilliantly as one can plainly see when trying to read each one of them.
The hours and minutes as well as display of the Gregorian calendar originate in the center. The 24-hour cycle of the double-hour numerals and symbols can be found at 12 o'clock, while the ten-year cycle of the Elements and Celestial are found at 3 o'clock. The twelve-month cycle of the Chinese calendar and the thirty-day cycle of its date and leap month indicator are at 9 o'clock while the twelve-year cycle of the annual Zodiac sign is in a window located at 12 o'clock. Last but not least, the moon phases are at 6 o'clock.

Particularly interesting will be the platinum version of the Villeret Traditional Chinese Calendar from Blancpain, since it will be strictly limited to only 20 pieces. The rose gold version will be produced in an unrestricted manner. With a 45 mm case (15 mm high), it is not exactly sized in sync with the latest benchmark defining the ideal case size for the Asian watch aficionado, which is right around 40 mm. However, considering the beauty and relative simplicity of the dial, along with the way it manages to compress two different cultures and calendar sciences, it certainly strives to represent collectors or watch aficionados in the east as well as the west.