The exhibition “Quand les artistes dessinaient les cartes : vues et figures de l’espace français, Moyen Âge et Renaissance” (When artists drew maps. Views and figures of France from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance) will be held at the Archives nationales (Paris) from 25 September 2019 to 7 January 2020. Bringing together over 100 examples drawn from archives all over France, most of which are being exhibited for the first time, the show examines local and regional maps produced in France between 1300 and 1600. It focuses on a moment when the history of cartography intersected with the history of art, and on contexts in which empirical observation took precedence over measurement in mapmaking. The maps on display were produced by painters to delineate boundaries or legal rights, to resolve territorial disputes, to document public works, to support military operations, to describe historical events, to catalogue possessions, and to celebrate the identity of a place or territory. The painters who produced these “figures” (as they were called at the time) drew on their expertise in drawing, composition, and perspective to create spectacular visual documents in a wide variety of media and formats. Richly colored and abundantly detailed, these compelling images offer rich and unexpected insights into artistic and cartographic practice, and into the forces that shaped urban and rural landscapes during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. They pose provocative challenges to traditional conceptions of cartography and invite us to reconsider what a map is and does.
The full-color catalogue, published by Le Passage, is available at the AN and online. http://www.lepassage-editions.fr/produit/artistes-dessinaient-cartes/
For more information, see:
http://www.archives-nationales.culture.gouv.fr/quand-les-artistes-dessinaient-les-cartes
Associated with the exhibition, there will be a conference on local and regional cartography on October 15th and 16th, in Paris and Orléans:
http://www.archives-nationales.culture.gouv.fr/documents/10157/11375/colloque-15-16-oct-2019.pdf/04320590-fe3b-42eb-b808-4192205cb512
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The International Society for the History of the Map 