"With a map," wrote the author of the ancient Chinese classic Daode jing, one might "know the whole world without leaving one's door."
The world thus seen, however, will vary depending on when, where and how the map was made. These differences in technique, technology and, ultimately, worldview, are the subject of "Space and Place: Mapmaking East and West." The exhibition in the corridors of the Geography and Map Division probes the differences between the quantitative and objective nature of Western cartography and the holistic quality of Oriental map-making. In so doing, it also explores the dual nature of maps, which cross the imaginary boundary between science and art.
Developed by the Mitchell Art Gallery of St. John's College using the collections of the Library of Congress's Geography and Map Division, the exhibition profiles more than 400 years of European and Chinese cartography. It offers nearly 50 items, including maps, atlases and related carto-bibliographic information. All of the Chinese maps were drawn from the Library's extensive Oriental map collection. The Western maps in the exhibition also include pieces donated from the private collection of Drs. Leonard and Juliet Rothman of Annapolis, Md.
One of the most impressive Chinese examples is a 19th century scrolled work almost 20 feet long. Gems from the West include an intact 1613 edition of the famous Mercator- Hondius atlas and a global projection created by Laurent Fries in 1522, at the very brink of a technical revolution that radically transformed European cartography.
Renaissance map-makers, such as Mercator and Ortelius, benefited from the rediscovery of mathematical cartography, as developed by Ptolemy of Alexandria (ca. A.D. 167). In Ptolemy's world map projection of the earth, the locations, which are plotted on lines of longitude and parallels of latitude, become geometrical points on a spherical surface. The world thus portrayed is a mathematical abstraction. Nuances of locality and landscape are sacrificed to achieve accuracy and consistency of result. While many of the Western maps feature decorative artwork, the goal of Western cartographers since the 16th century has been to portray a scientific and objective reality capable of being measured and known.
The Chinese maps, by contrast, are governed by the effects of place, not the rule of mathematics. Owing more to art than science, pictorial renderings, or "chorographs," such as "Map of Hainan Island," a 19th century ink and color manuscript, display an almost fanciful interpretation of physical reality. Vividly detailed, this finely textured piece suggests an intimacy absent from European maps after 1600. It seems to portray life not as it is, but as the author wishes it to appear.
Although Jesuit missionaries had carried mathematical cartography to the Orient by the late 1500s, the Chinese aesthetic flourished until the close of the last century. After that time, according to Professor Cordell D.K. Yee, the exhibit director, the tradition declined rapidly, and has now all but vanished.
The ascendancy of science in modern map-making is illustrated by two satellite images produced from remote sensors and computer digitization. One map, created by the Earth Observation Satellite Co. (EOSAT), of Lanham, Md., depicts four views of Hong Kong rendered in various spectral-band combinations. Another, produced by a team of Chinese researchers using American technology, is a patchworked cartographic quilt of entire China.
"Space & Place: Mapmaking East and West" can be viewed outside the Geography and Map Division reading room though Nov. 15. An exhibition catalog, containing reproductions of all the featured items, including eight full- color plates, a monograph by Professor Yee and an extended bibliography, is available through the Library of Congress Sales Shop and the Mitchell Art Gallery.
