The map as index of the real: Land art and the authentication of travel

Abstract

Maps can mean many things, and often their meanings change over the centuries of their existence. Maps which at first had way-finding purpose read very differently when their directions can no longer be relied on. They become icons from the distant past. An equally pronounced variation of meaning occurs when the map enters the regime of representation: that is to say, when it is annexed to, or included in, work of art. This article is about the special circumstances in which the map is used to reproduce, and at the same time to authenticate, the artist's journey, as in the distinctive contemporary form of expression which goes by the name of Land Art. However, I shall be arguing that this contemporary art movement is not unprecedented in the way it utilises the map. Indeed the map's role of authenticating travel can be seen as perennial possibility, depending on the precise conditions which the cartogaphic sign is designed to fulfil. My introduction to Land Art will thus include specific reference to the representation of seventeenth-century map which works in this way. I shall, however, begin with more famous seventeenth-century example which could well be used to demonstrate the many-layered possibilities of the map within representation. Jan Vermeer's Art of Painting incorporates splendid map of the United Provinces, displayed on the back wall of an artist's studio.' The map is rendered with astonishing precision, so much so that it has become a source for our knowledge of cartographic history.2 But it is more than that. Lit dramatically from the side, with its intricately painted folds and crinkles denoting its status as an object, the map becomes an index of Vermeer's exceptional skill in describing the infinite particularities of the visible world. Both an object of knowledge, marking real relationships and distances, and represented object caught in the glancing light, it functions as an eloquent internal metaphor of Vermeer's art. Vermeer's work is useful for further reason in preparing the ground for my argument, since it displays, in addition to the map, an artist in his studio confronted with dishevelled model. This raises the obvious question of who the artist may be supposed to be. We may begin by asking if he is perhaps surrogate for Vermeer. Does Vermeer intend us to interpret the clearly delineated figure, with his back towards us, as in some sense representative of the act as well as the art of painting? This is an issue which the linguist Emil Benveniste helps us to analyse in more precise way by drawing categorical distinction between the functions of histoire and discours?' Whereas histoire conveys the past as past, with no subjective intervention, discours always implies that subject is enunciating the message. The question therefore could be expressed in the following form. Does Vermeer intend to convey the meaning, here I am at my easel, painting? Or does he imply, this artist is part of the story that I am telling? In fact, the answer to this question is easy. Here we see painter at the easel, painting; yet this is not, and cannot be, the painter Vermeer who has delegated his role to the artist in the picture. We know that Vermeer painted in different way from the process in which the anachronistically dressed artist is engaging in. And yet the more we discover about Vermeer's working procedure,4 the more the question of enunciation seems to become complicated to the