The same could be argued of many works, particularly over the last 100 years, where modern artists use advanced techniques to disrupt, create and then recreate connections of emotional belonging in the viewer. The recreation of areas by supposedly causal means affects both geography in maps and paint on canvas. Pollock's technique is naturally generated, like a map. Lines and colours are created at random points, where maps are created out of roads and fields that may well have originated out of someone trying to get somewhere through trial and error. As such, the way in which the work is originally constructed is often more important than the final result.
Paintings can be better than many maps due to the work being less permeated.
As such the representation of an element such as altitude could in fact be better represented in painted form than through the restrictions of a 2D map. It may make turning the pages difficult, but you would have an idea of how high Ben Nevis really is. It is certain that both maps and paintings chart the progression of a country and its culture in a physical manifestation. The art scene and look of a country were both different 50 or 500 years ago. As such both can take a particular place in time, at when the work was finished.