![pictorial map pictorial map](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/BRM3355-Paige-Cape-Cod-ca-1940_lowres.jpg)
![pictorial map pictorial map](http://cdn.supadupa.me/shop/14281/images/1552456/Boston_and_Vicinity_pictorial_map_1938_24_31_p1_grande.jpg)
While there have been recent books utilizing pictorial maps among other types of images as part of the study of how people conceptualized Main Street in America, or particular places such as Manhattan, there is no history of pictorial maps as a genre yet written.Īll this presents an opportunity to put together a first class collection for relatively little money compared to other areas of map or antiques collecting. Academic institutions such as the Harvard University Library are beginning to take a serious look at them, putting together exhibits such as the 2003 show at Harvard of maps by Ernest Dudley Chase. The style of the map usually reflects the period, notably Art Deco, which was popular in the Twenties and Thirties.Īs a subspecialty of map collecting, collecting pictorial maps is in its relatively early stages, even compared to other types of 20th-century commercial maps such as road maps. The heyday of pictorial maps was the 1920s through 1950s, with a resurgence in the 1970s, and they are still are made today. Pictorial mapmaking resurfaced as a popular culture art form in the early 20th century. That practice died out however, and if there were illustrations at all, they were pushed off the map itself into the border. Ortelius' map of the Netherlands), little trees to represent forests, native animals (notably Herman Moll's "Beaver Map" of North America), and other small pictures.
![pictorial map pictorial map](https://library.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/4410_1930_2_detail.jpg)
The maps that followed during the Age of Exploration became progressively more accurate in their geographic proportions and detail, but still were often sprinkled with small drawings of sea creatures and ships sailing in the direction of the prevailing winds (e.g. Though the first real pictorial map depicted the London Underground, artists and cartographers across the pond embraced the style wholeheartedly, forming what Ehrenberg calls “a uniquely American art form.” 1.In the Western tradition, medieval maps such as the Catalan Atlas (1375) were compendiums of historical and ethnographic information as much as they were attempts to render geography. “Because contemporary curators and librarians generally did not consider pictorial maps ‘geographic’ or ‘scientific,’ most libraries did not collect them and they are quite rare today,” as Ralph Ehrenberg, who heads the Library of Congress’s Geography and Map Division, writes in the book’s introduction. , a new book by geographer Stephen Hornsby, collects 158 of these charming visuals, largely drawing on the Library of Congress’s extensive collection. Inspired in part by the sea-monster-filled maps of medieval Europe, these colorful, bright maps-often used for commercial advertising-illustrated outsized renderings of iconic architecture, major industries, tourist destinations, and folklore rather than simply streets and topography. artists embraced a form of cartography that swapped careful measurements and accurately rendered geography for a more whimsical mode of wayfinding: the pictorial map. Between the 1920s and the 1960s, many U.S.
![pictorial map pictorial map](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ff/e4/40/ffe440b4e1790dff9003ca6b22722e00.jpg)
Map-making isn’t always serious business. A new book collects rare images from the short-lived golden age of pictorial mapping.