Vintage Maps: Décor With Direction

Vintage Maps: Décor with Direction

“A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases;
It will never pass into nothingness;”
- John Keats

Maps have long enjoyed a special place in our heritage. Capturing the wayfaring spirit of the traveling adventurer, the intrigues of shifting kingdoms and political fiefdoms, the historical perspective and routes of our forefathers, and the unique colors and flavors of the world, maps offer what most pieces of vintage art do not—a romantic appeal to most everyone. With unique allure, maps can serve as focal centerpieces or merely serve as interesting accents. These attractive pieces of vintage art offer Old-World charm and captivate our fascination, even if for a brief moment, wherever they are placed, as conversation starters or as meaningful pieces with eternal appeal.

As a Design Feature

1799 Map of The World
Antique world maps encapsulate the essence of a changing world and provide unique pieces of historical romance and splashes of adventurous color to any room.

The vintage map is unique in its ability to mesh its design with virtually any type of design scheme, color palette, or enclosed space. Maps speak artfully across the ages of the desperation of esteemed ancestral émigrés, the derring-do of heroic explorers, the determination of military minds, and the doggedness of beleaguered cultures by framing time within man-made land boundaries and natural seascapes. The crisp graphics and subtle tints allow us to capture an entire era, a nation or a culture that has receded into the past but demands not to be forgotten.

The use of the vintage maps as a décor item allows us to capture a time and place which we may have never experienced directly or one that we wish to cherish as a memory. As the human lifespan extends, the length of our future makes the extent of our history seem all that more important. The vintage map can give us a starting point and a sense of direction contained in a clear and concise piece of art that will allow others to see the patterns of our personal or cultural history.

1716 Homann Map of The World
A double hemisphere map of the world by Johann Baptist Homann. Digitally retouched .

Universal Usage

Most everyone uses maps, and the vast majority of people do so with the single purpose of finding a proper route from where they are to where they want to go. In some cases, they even look to see where others have started and ended journeys. A select few, however, see the map as artistic design, perhaps even viewing it as the high expression of engraving and printing skills. Beginning in the 18th century, and well into the 20th, the wealthy, the powerful (and those aspiring to be) either used the bound, colored atlas as the centerpiece in the private library or sitting room in an attempt to demonstrate both acumen and urbanity. The cleverly displayed atlas was left open to a page denoting a recent travel experience, a troublesome current political event, or even a gloomy catastrophe in an effort to spark conversation.

Dynamic business leaders, determined politicians and high-ranking military officers have always used the imposing globe or impressive wall map to delineate the extent of their influence or the depth of their ambitions. Medieval and Renaissance governments and their commissioned discoverers kept maps as secret weapons to rile foes or foil rivals. Democratic societies distributed maps to their populations as a symbol of freedom while totalitarian regimes made maps, and the potential such documents gave for travel, off-limits to all but a few in the ruling echelons.

As an Artform

Vintage Map of Greece
Published in 1688 in Amsterdam. , originally printed on three sheets. Includes illustration of lion with enslaved human figures shown in embellished title cartouche. Views of fortified towns in outer margins.

Fortunately, maps have other uses beyond their function as travel aids. When maps first appeared on the walls of the powerful or in the atlases of the wealthy, the eye-catching beauty of the design and the power of the ability of paper and ink to evoke emotion were immediately apparent. Color, line, structure and even the calligraphy of maps could transcend the purpose for which they were originally intended. The tool became an art form unto itself. A map’s practical use could be made obsolete by war, politics or cataclysm, but the beauty of the design and quality of production gave a well-executed map an eternal appeal.

Evolution of Cartography

The first maps to be engraved, colored and printed for non-field use were produced for the most part as artworks, not as practical tools for navigators, engineers or armies on the march. In these display maps, the functional part of the chart often took up a minority of space with the majority being devoted to depicting the grandeur of the cartographer’s patrons or the novel landscapes and wondrous creatures supposedly to be found within the map’s boundaries. Other maps offered the pictorial histories of those who had traveled the depicted lands and seas. Until the 16th century, most maps had been individually hand drawn and illustrated with much the same care and artistic verve as could be found in medieval manuscripts. Just as books became mass-produced and mass consumed, so did maps, and in both cases the practical aspects of the product soon overwhelmed the artistic. Although today’s maps are far more accurate and the information infinitely more useful, modern collectors and interior designers look to the past for the finest examples of cartography for use in display or décor.

Bird's Eye View Map of San Francisco
Published in 1876 by Currier & Ives.

The Allure

There has never been a time when people have traveled as often and as far as we do today. Everybody came from somewhere and most of us want to go somewhere else. The frequency and exigencies of travel often destroy our sense of time and distance but maps return this sensibility. We not only can recapture these sensations from our own travel experience but those of our ancestors and culture. Vintage maps allow us to display pride in our own accomplishments while linking them to our lineage. Like a shelf of richly bound classic texts, a well-framed map speaks as much about the owner’s worldliness as it does about taste. Few people today can decorate their walls with portraits of stately ancestors, but that does not mean one’s ancestry is not worth celebrating. A vintage map can say as much as a hall of portraits in far less space and in a much more subdued voice.

The Variety

The choices of décor maps are many, but the effect is the same. A city map of medieval Naples, a county map of revolutionary Cork, a regional map of Provence, a Civil War map of the United States or a 16th-century map of the New World are as much conversation starters as they are symbols of the owner’s perspective on life. Some are elaborately framed or shadow boxed to match a classical interior design while others are simply shielded by a glass panel to emphasize the graphic quality of the print. Whatever the presentation method, people are instantly drawn to these displays and it takes little to encourage the viewer’s historical opinions or personal travel experiences.

Any Design Scheme, Any Budget

An artful map presentation can be used in any room and with any design scheme or within any decorating budget. Maps can be printed in any size deemed suitable and serve as an affordable means of affecting a timeless sensibility to home or office. Properly presented maps focus the eye and the intellect with a subtle mixture of graphic excellence and historical perception. Like many other forms of art, the vintage map can reduce the world while expanding the mind.

Reprinted with Permission from StockMapAgency.com. StockMapAgency.com (http://www.stockmapagency.com) offers an extensive selection of vintage maps from the 15th to early 20th century available as a museum quality art print or digital download.