NO matter how astonishing all the latest map apps are at a technical level, their purpose is simple: To get people as painlessly as possible from A to B. Maps have not always existed for such a practical purpose. In the past they were more of an aid to the imagination and an aesthetic pleasure than a serious instrument of navigation.
The Peninsula and Borneo had, until that point, been of great but separate interest to mapmakers. Only in 1963 were they assembled as one unit, along with Singapore, which had been of limited geographical concern until the 19th Century. At that time not much happened south of the Causeway and there was no causeway anyway. Size was another factor in the apparent lack of importance attached to Singapore. The island of Borneo is more than a thousand times larger and received very much more attention during the age of exploration.
NATURE OF CARTOGRAPHY
The title of the exhibition reflects the sometimes arbitrary nature of cartography. Where’s Malaysia? sums up the changing ways of showing both halves of the nation. Inaccurate though many of the early representations were, they did at least try to accommodate the presence of the Malay Peninsula and Borneo. Australia doesn’t appear until the 17th Century and even then was viewed as a possible extension of the South Pole. Large chunks of North America were also missing from maps at this time. South America, like Asia, was not only better known to mapmakers but was also of more interest to viewers.
As most of the early mapmakers were from elsewhere, there is an obvious lack of on-the-ground experience of the region in general. Southeast Asia was the quintessence of exoticism, a land of warm breezes and hot spices. There was less clarity on the types of people who lived in these parts. The earliest images of the native population to make it onto a map are extravagantly dressed in European Renaissance style but with a distinctly non-regional sense of hospitality — they appear to be eating their dinner guests after a rudimentary slicing.
In general, the illustrations that accompany old maps are a more palatable feast for the visual senses. Throughout the 17th and 18th Centuries, Southeast Asia brims with outlandish wildlife and noble locals. By the time the Victorian era arrived, the approach had become more serious. Science was king by this point and fevered cartographic imaginations were cooled down considerably.
MAPMAKING TECHNOLOGY
Among the earliest maps to show what might be Malaysia was drawn in the 12th Century by the definitive Arab geographer, Al-Idrisi, in the service of King Roger II of Sicily. It has confused countless viewers with its reversed visualisation of the world, inverting north and south. His vision was no less logical than the now universal concept of north being at the top of the map but it does take a real effort of will to resist turning his map upside down to make it more comprehensible. The temptation was too great for an anonymous German cartographer of the 18th Century, who reversed Al-Idrisi’s view at the same time as translating the original Arabic.
With the help of scientists such as Al-Idrisi, Europe became the world centre of mapmaking from that point onwards, matching the continent’s appetite for acquiring new physical territory. Among the earliest European representations of this region dates from the 14th Century. It’s scenic, chaotic and, like most early maps, a lack of scientific knowledge is balanced by charming fantasy. A map was an object to be cherished and to free the senses, not contain them.
The ancient Greco-Roman geographer Ptolemy’s view of the world was reworked by Johannes Schnitzer in the 15th Century to include 10 faces around the edge, blowing the winds that had begun to make global trade an important phenomenon.
As with many maps, the colouring tended to come later and was another sensual free-for-all. Water was usually blue or green but other elements could be just as the colourist imagined them. Maps without any colour at all are also a wonder to behold. The quality of the paper and the woodblock or copperplate printing can provide a refreshing alternative to a proliferation of names and colours. From the visual point of view, the diversity of colour and clutter in earlier maps is a blessing compared to the dreary palette predictability of maps from the 19th Century onwards.
The modern era does have its compensations. Specialist maps can be fun and fascinating, tackling Malaysian subject matter such as electricity supplies, telephone systems or rail networks. They are functional and precise, with an appeal that comes from the “form follows function” school of aesthetics. These are not for armchair travellers, which is what most surviving maps from the past were, mostly bound in book form for the admiration of those with the money and leisure time to enjoy them. They were not aimed at traders on the Spice Route or pirates of the Caribbean. The sort of maps that these adventurers would have used put less of a premium on appearance and more on practicality.
THE EXHIBITION
The maps in the Where’s Malaysia? exhibition cover a wide enough range to show not only how the rest of the world regarded the land that would later become Malaysia but also how Malaysia has seen itself over the past 50 years. The clearest example is the first map of the new nation, published in 1963 and colourfully showing 14 states with their own flags as the focal point. By 1966, there had been a reprint to reflect the 13 states that have existed since then. Every map in the exhibition has its own voice and none of them sounds like it comes out of a GPS.
Al-Idrisi’s map updated in 1780, with north at the top. Malaysia has become a collection of islands between India and China.
Although Europe was the world centre of mapmaking, Ottoman cartographers turned their hand to the art, as in this map from 1895.
ART & ABOUT: As seen by cartographers
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