Aesthetic Aspects of Early Maps - Advances in Cartography and GIScience - page 56

R. Rees speaks of so called mastery in maps , he says that maps lost their
aesthetic function when they became utility objects (Rees 1980). The ever
expanding geographical knowledge of map creators also gave rise to the
loss of the primary, or aesthetic, function of maps; , “empty space“ ceased
to exist in them, i.e. the creators did not have such a free hand any more
(ibid.). However, the activity of an artist assumes freedom of creation,
which is limited by this process (Kuchař 1974). In this context we must not
forget the evolution of cartographic language and the means of expression
of the map. While in the Middle Ages it was difficult to differentiate these
means from landscaping (S. Alpers in Woodward 1987, deals with what
inspiration cartography took from landscaping in more detail), which is
certainly related to the above mentioned intermingling of the person of the
cartographer and the artist, creativity in map creation becomes gradually
more and more limited and information potential is enhanced. Pictures
were gradually substituted by conventional characters (Rees 1980), see
below for the already mentioned shift from realism.
Approximately since 1600 superficial mapping was gradually substituted
by better topographic mapping, thus creating ever more accurate maps
with dense content, objects are represented via ground plotting, which led
the to the overall ”chaos” in the graphical design. Some maps were un-
intelligible due to the labyrinth of lines, figural characters, colours and
descriptions. However, chaotic graphical design is not a graphical art and the
lower the user-friendliness the lower the artistic level of the map (Imhof
1967). The use of some methods of expression, like Lehmann's hachure, to
represent altimetry even potentiated the problems of intelligibility and
legibility. It was one of the reasons for this method to be later substituted
by contour lines (Bláha 2003).
The development of reproduction techniques and techniques in general
also contributed to the increase in accuracy of the maps - for example,
copper engraving led to much higher fineness of the image. On the other
hand, lithography and multicolour printing were used to multiply the num-
ber of maps created, not to improve their graphical representation (ibid.).
Unfortunately, it can be noted that a similar trend was kept when changing
from analog to digital map creation, which is, logically, not mentioned by
E. Imhof.
In terms of art, today's maps can be considered symbolic abstraction ;
there has been a shift from realism (with its typical image representation of
objects and phenomena, hill method as a view of mountains and hills, etc.),
it is enough to retain an illusion to maintain the effect (Rees 1980). Never-