page_title: Pictorial map
section_title: Pictorial map-makers up to modern times
hierarchical_section_title: Pictorial map / Pictorial map-makers up to modern times
caption_attribution_description: English: The Man of Commerce, 1889, Rand McNally and Company
context_page_description: Pictorial maps depict a given territory with a more artistic rather than technical style. It is a type of map in contrast to road map, atlas, or topographic map. The cartography can be a sophisticated 3-D perspective landscape or a simple map graphic enlivened with illustrations of buildings, people and animals. They can feature all sorts of varied topics like historical events, legendary figures or local agricultural products and cover anything from an entire continent to a college campus. Drawn by specialized artists and illustrators, pictorial maps are a rich, centuries-old tradition and a diverse art form that ranges from cartoon maps on restaurant placemats to treasured art prints in museums.
  Pictorial maps usually show an area as if viewed from above at an oblique angle. They are not generally drawn to scale in order to show street patterns, individual buildings, and major landscape features in perspective. While regular maps focus on the accurate rendition of distances, pictorial maps enhance landmarks and often incorporate a complex interplay of different scales into one image in order to give the viewer a more familiar sense of recognition.
context_section_description: Ironically, despite all the changes that they record, very little has changed in the business of creating pictorial maps over the centuries. Showing off a given town, attracting visitors and stirring up local pride is what they have always been about. Most of these maps were and continue to be created by a handful of itinerant specialists who keep up the tradition. Many of them traveled from city to city enlisting the support of local merchants, industrialists and civic organizations, whose endorsement would of course guarantee a prominent place for their properties on the map.
  Edwin Whitefield for instance, one of the more prolific 19th-century American pictorial map artists, would require about 200 subscribers before he put pen to paper.  Once he secured the profitability of the venture, Whitefield would be seen all over town furiously sketching every building.  Then, choosing an imaginary aerial vantage point, he would integrate all his sketches into a complete and detailed drawing of the city. Then after that, say the chroniclers of the time, Whitefield would once again be seen furiously darting all over town to collect from all his sponsors.
  Says Jean-Louis Rheault, a contemporary pictorial map illustrator: "Pictorial maps - with their emphasis on what's important and eye-catching - make it easier to figure out what's where."
caption: The Man of Commerce, 1889, Rand McNally and Company
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