Cartographic Perspectives (E-Journal - North American Cartographic Information Society, NACIS)
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Making Explicit What has Been Implicit: A Call for a Conceptual Theory of Cartography
No full textHow is a map different from things that are not maps? What is a map? How do you know it's a map? Such questions appear quite simple—the answers would seem to be things everyone knows almost without thinking—yet comprehensive answers have proved elusive. Hitherto, such existential questions have almost inevitably been either conflated with practical ones or deliberately ignored.
Map artifacts are, by themselves, mere things. Like any text, the map artifact can be read, and, through the action of being read, the artifact comes to bear meaning. Maps, however, go beyond mere meaning-bearing to achieve a state where they actually embody meaning. Reaching a state of meaning-embodiment requires a transformation that is analogous to an apotheosis or a transfiguration of the common clay of the artifact into an abstract conceptual state of map-hood.
Describing this transfiguration into a conceptual state requires a Conceptual theory of cartography—one that defines the relationship between the artifact as a thing and the map as an abstract entity, and that also defines the map entity in a manner unambiguously applicable to every, any, and all maps. Such a theory would also have to define the discipline of cartography in relation to that abstract map entity.
This paper proposes the outlines for the required Conceptual theory—one based on the proven model of Conceptual Art. Practically speaking, the first step—and the effective scope of the paper—is an inquiry into the nature of the map as an abstract conceptual entity. It provides a model for an investigative methodology for interrogating the formal map, and sketches out a framework for assimilating the findings of such investigations. This paper will not settle all fundamental questions about what a map is, but it will outline an analytical course that can address them. It proposes that asking how one knows something is a map is a step on the road to discovering what a map is
Making Explicit the Implicit, Idealized Understanding of “Map” and “Cartography”: An Anti-Universalist Response to Mark Denil
No full textThis paper responds to Mark Denil’s recent exposition in this journal of a conceptual theory of map. Denil advances a universalist position, that there exists an essential character of mapness that characterizes all maps. A key element of Denil’s essay is the dismissal of a strawman anti-universalism. This paper reasserts an anti-universalist understanding of maps and cartography to reveal the flaws in Denil’s essay
A Stylistic Study of the Hand-Painted Winter Panorama Maps of Pierre Novat
No full textI present a study of the hand-painted winter panoramas of Atelier Novat, a workshop founded by Pierre Novat (1928–2007) in the 1960s, whose style was perpetuated by his children Arthur and Frédérique. I offer a portrait of Pierre Novat and a brief historical overview of the workshop. The contribution of the paper is to describe the style of Novat through the analysis of its constituent elements: creation process, color palette, terrain deformation, light effects, and surface texture (trees, rocks, roads, and buildings). Creating an ideal yet personal representation of a mountain has a dual purpose: a practical one, to help the viewer understand the topography of the region, and an aesthetic one, to depict an imaginary mountain, now iconic of the French Alps, that encourages dreams. The paper concludes with a review of existing methods, in cartography and computer graphics, for the creation of digital panoramas
