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Chicago and The Festival of Maps - Jonathan Reports
Having promoted Chicago’s great cartographic initiative to collectors and colleagues alike, I was thoroughly looking forward to taking time to visit the city and attend the coinciding Nebenzahl Lectures and Society for the History of Discoveries meetings in early November. As most will know my trips to the US, to Chicago and Washington in the past, and annually to Los Angeles or San Francisco, Miami, New York and Boston, are made to attend Book and Map Fairs and to pursue thoroughly commercial ends – this was different. I had no stock, no booth to attend and no dealers to bargain with!
The lectures are gone but the exhibitions remain – and what a richness of cartographic treasures is on display. The city has encouraged over a dozen institutions, from the magnificent Field Museum to more humble bodies, to assemble and make public exhibitions of maps from the earliest times to the present day and from the unique to the best of the commonplace. Together the exhibits comprise what must surely be the greatest assembly of displayed maps ever and they demonstrate vividly the elemental functions of cartography as records of fact or promptings of fantasy and adventure.
Besides the major displays at the Field, Newberry Library and Adler Planetarium there are exhibitions devoted to maps of Africa, Lithuania, Poland, Chicago and Paris, and, for those with a broader more modern concept of the word “map”, exhibits by artists, photographers and conceptualists. Whatever one’s personal taste there is something here for anyone who regards cartography as one of the most fundamental studies in art or science.
Inevitably I could not attend every event or exhibition, but found time to visit the Polish Museum of America for their interesting exhibit of Polish maps and the development of Warsaw and I also visited the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago for the well displayed Sopranos Collection of maps of the Ottoman world. Nearby, at the University, was a fascinating collection of plans, plates and books reflecting the development of the Lafreri school of Rome publishers illustrating their own images of the classical city.
The Newberry Library, renowned for its ever-expanding map collection, featured two exhibitions – the first, in its chronological content, being a comprehensive record of examples of each printed edition of Claudius Ptolemy’s “Geographia” thus describing its history from the first printed collection of maps published in 1477 to its last incarnation as a reissue of Mercator’s set of maps nearly three hundred years later. The Library’s second display illustrated the development of the Midwest from the earliest settlers to the late nineteenth century including manuscript material from the Lewis and Clark expedition and large-scale State maps of the 1850’s and 60’s. This exhibit demonstrates clearly how the entire history of European involvement with North America is recorded and reflected in printed maps, and indicates why so many collectors find these maps so exciting to collect.
By way of a contrast to the flat maps already described, the Adler Planetarium’s offerings are thoroughly three dimensional, as indeed any attempt to plot the skies would have to be, and their display of globes, planetaria, and other scientific instruments includes some spectacular and beautifully made objects. The exhibition demonstrates earthbound concepts from the earliest times to the most up-to-date cosmic imagery as seen from Earth and beyond. Amongst treasures from their own collection and other loans are Mercator and Blaeu celestial globes, Islamic astrolabes and quiblas, and instruments and printed volvelles of amazing complexity. The Planetarium is a marvellously designed museum which can’t fail to stimulate whatever one’s personal interest and, excited as I was by the ancient historical artefacts, I was equally impressed by the Apollo spaceship capsule which to our earthbound minds has made a journey as staggering as those of Columbus, Dias or Magellan five hundred years ago.
The blockbuster Field Museum exhibition is, of course, the highlight around which the Festival of Maps circulates and it is a tremendous display of the unique, the most significant, and where commonplace, the best maps, atlases, charts and plans ever produced. Items such as the Matthew Paris’ pilgrim’s route map, Richard Gough’s British Isles map, the Carte Pisani portulan, and Mercator’s world map of 1569 would be worthy of dedicated exhibitions alone, whereas Harry Beck’s London Underground map, Aleph’s “Geographical Fun” and nineteenth-century thematic maps put into context the many varied attributes and purposes which can attach to a “map”. Innumerable items are displayed which, to most map students and enthusiasts, have only ever been seen illustrated in reference books, and are rarely allowed outside their national depositories.
Maps in general, despite digital cartography and satellite navigation systems, appear to be enjoying great current popularity when one considers the proliferation of books on historical cartography and illustrating maps, and the vast variety of ephemeral material, such as neck-ties and other fashion accessories, placemats, diaries and so on featuring map images. These exhibitions will educate and inform as never before.
Finally I am pleased to say that amongst all the fantastic, fabulous and unique, there are also innumerable maps on show that fall within the financial reach of collectors and may still be found on the market. Exhibiting at book and antique fairs in the UK and USA I am often asked, “surely all the good maps are in museums and libraries?” – the answer is, “no – fascinating, rare and decorative maps, worthy of museum display, are still there to be personally enjoyed”. In the current climate of diminishing high-street exposure of maps available to new collectors, the Chicago Exhibitions demonstrate vividly the historical cartographic heritage available to historians, geographers, genealogists and collectors around the world.
For further information visit http://www.festivalofmaps.com/index.aspx
