The roads seem to be the logical next layer. They are likely the first effort made by the military unit to allow vehicular movement and more operations through the beach area. There are two types of roads depicted, improved and un-improved. The improved roads, drawn with solid lines bisect and dissect the beach area and the primary road leads south into the interior of the island. The six unimproved roads, depicted with dashed lines and arrayed essentially north to south, originate from the shore and lead to 533rd bivouac area or to one of three logistics resupply areas. The lines are all drawn with a straight edge, with the exception of the road leading into the bivouac area. Again, I think this shows the ruggedness of the terrain.
This layer contains the non-white solid colors on the map: blue, orange, yellow and black. I chose this as the second layer for two reasons. First, I thought isolating the color without any text or other map elements would help me be able to discern the rationale behind why colors are used where they are. On the map, land masses are always colored with the exception of Antarctica. The Americas, Africa, and parts of Asia are in blue, Europe and Japan are in yellow, and the rest of Asia and the middle East are in orange. Japan is also outlined in orange, while no other land masses have a different color outline (perhaps to signal that the map is from a Japan-centric point of view/make the country pop out in a way). My best hypothesis for the continental division of color is importance for Japanese politics or economics. Yellow (Europe and Japan) would be the most important, the orange (the greater Asia area) would be second, and Blue (Western Hemisphere and Africa) third and uncolored areas (Antarctica!) last. The only non-blue part of the Americas is an orange-colored river that is depicted as protruding into the West coast of North America. If my hypothesis is correct, then the river is the most important part of the continent to the Japanese (perhaps a potential area for exploration/shipping). The mountains of Asia are also in blue, maybe hinting at their relative economic unimportance? The far North Arctic area is in black, a clear isolated division from the rest of the world. Second, returning to my first layer (organizational boundaries), some of the text-filled boxes I isolated in my first layer are colored orange or yellow, while others are uncolored. This could also represent a hierarchy of importance or a division of topic. Just as the black lines do, the colors influence our perception of what the most important or crucial elements of the map are. Black boxes along the equator each contain one Japanese character, which could have locational (i.e. coordinates) importance.
One of the things that stood out most immediately to me about this map—again, both visually and interpretively—was the abundance of fortifications and walls of different types on display. Visually, the darkly rendered lines of the walls give them a boldness that overshadows other kinds of information on the map. I do not believe this map has a military or even strongly political purpose (because of its decorative qualities and emphasis on points of interest in the lower etching) but the choice to meticulously and darkly render so many different kinds of walls in the city to me sends a clear message about Berlin's robust infrastructure and defense. The kinds of walls included are so intricate and varied: countryside fences, imposing arched perimeter walls, fences demarcating property boundaries, city walls dividing streets and bridges, and of course the impressive intricacies of the inner star-shaped fortifications. What are these walls telling us? Is Berlin an unwelcoming place? Again, I don't think so. Instead, this seems to be a map of a city proud of its well-designed fortifications and distinctly organized suburbs. To reflect all of this, I traced the map's walls with a thick brush pen, both to emulate the look of the dark walls on the map and also to emphasize the way in which those walls seem to be a bold and intentionally abundant feature.
Sekai bankoku Nihon yori kaijō risu kokuin ōjō jinbutsuzu (世界萬國日本ヨリ海上里数国印王城人物図)
What it is: The yellow layer depicts the landmass of the European continent, as well as the base color for Japan, the compass in the middle, mountain ranges in Europe and South America, and various labels around the map. The yellow color also includes islands off the coast of Europe, presumably the UK and perhaps even Iceland/Greenland though they are not labelled. The European continent seems to include the Middle East as well, separated from the African continent by the “West Red Sea,” presumably the modern day “Red Sea.” Yellow is also the base color for the label Asia and the southern landmass (Terra Australis), whereas Europe’s and Africa’s labels are in red. The color is also used in part for the fictitious characters’ garbs. Why it is important: The color hierarchy for labelling seems to be a bit inconsistent. If red-labelled Japan should be the center of the map and most important, then red should be the most important base color for labelling. Further, North America, Europe and Libya (Africa) have also been labelled in red. The labels for Europe and Terra Australia are yellow and South America seems to be uncolored. Using this information to create a hierarchy based on color, Japan on par with North America, Europe and Libya/Africa. This category would also be more important than Europe, Terra Australis and South America. This hierarchy does not compute with Japan being most important, relative to the other landmasses, and I cannot identify a pattern in this organization of color categorization for labels. The topographic coloration also seems to place the mountain ranges in (1) Japan (though the Japanese one has more detailed etches), Europe and South America in a separate category from (2) Asia, Terra Australis and North America. I’m not sure what the distinguishing feature between these two types of mountain ranges are, as they are classified by continent, not within them (which might suggest differentiation based on elevation). Again, these inconsistencies towards in colored hierarchy, both for landmass labelling and mountain ranges, suggest that veracity might not have been the primary objective for this map.
Creating this layer probably made me most aware of the choices and labor involved in creating this map. When I set out to create a layer that would illustrate inclusion of trees and what appears to be cultivated land on the map, my eye had primarily been drawn to the cross-hatched sections around the border and the more darkly wooded zone on the right. As I settled into the task of tracing, however, the abundance of these sections became increasingly apparent. The the walls of the city had grabbed my eye as imposing and varied structures comprising the bulk of the city plan, I now realized that trees were just as multiplicitous and raised some even more interesting questions. First of all, the decision to include so many meticulously rendered trees could not have been casual. The trees are depicted in extensive and microscopic detail, varying in size and to some extent design depending where they appear on the map. The trees are arranged in incredibly neat patterns throughout the suburbs, leading me to a) conclude that this kind of natural cultivation was important to the city's graphic presentation of itself, and b) intensely wonder if the trees depicted here actually reflect real locations of trees, or are meant as more of a suggestion towards a kind of land. I am fascinated by both possibilities. Another interesting facet is the fact that there is a noticeable hole in the center of this layer—there are not trees within the fortified center of the city, where buildings are more dense. This combined with the fortifications and the color zoning hint at the fact that life might have looked pretty different in the city center compared to the outer city beyond the central fortifications. Also on this layer are the manicured park spaces dotted around the suburbs, which like the well-ordered lines of trees suggest to me an interest in cultivating nature; and the broader areas of farmland at the periphery which suggest a different kind of cultivation.
The purpose of layers three and four is to build on the functionality established in layers one and two by introducing elements of physical geography, while also showing how the map presents geographical elements in a way which helps to further a narrative of an emphasized center city. Layer three builds on layers one and two by imparting geographical sense to the perspective, measuring tools, and elements of the built urban environment introduced in the first two layers. With two indices, large amounts of text, densely drawn buildings, and a perspective illustration it is easy to get lost in a plethora of “unnatural” or non-geographical information. The lines in layer three which outline three separately districted islands in the river Spree complement the spatially separated (but not explicitly bounded) capital letter markers of layer two by imposing geographical elements to classify and bound these points in representations of real space on the ground. Where before we had a cartesian plane, we now have points bounded by clearly identifiable elements of geography which could be seen on the ground (or in our perspective illustration). In this sense layer three brings the reader into the geographic reality of Berlin. Furthermore, the way the reader is engaged to interact with this defined geographic space begins to further a narrative of an emphasis on this sectionalized center city denoted by index sections A, B, and C (Berlin, Coln, and Federichs Werder). An entire “overflow index” in the map’s top right hand corner is is devoted to naming streets and other features in these three dense inner city districts. This represents a concerted effort on the part of the mapmaker to emphasize the importance of labeling these inner city features by taking up space elsewhere on the page in order to ensure that they are easily referenced. The city center is also shaded uniformly in a darker hue than spaces elsewhere on the map. This uniformity points to segmentation of these three districts within the city at large, and likewise emphasizes centrality of this geographical area. Additionally, the title box in the map’s lower left corner tells us that the city we are looking at is in fact called Berlin. This may seem a pedestrian or inconsequential observation, however, our index in layer two suggests that “Berlin” is just one of eight districts represented. This serves to strongly imply central importance of district A, and by extension of the uniform colorization of B and C, these districts as well.
Perhaps the most obvious medium for the portrayal of European domination is the inclusion or exclusion of continents on Vischer’s map. Europe appears at the northernmost point as the most complex in outline due to the cartographer’s Dutch background. Africa appears particularly large in scale, even surpassing the size of Asia, perhaps due to its conceptualization in European global imaginary as a as site for exploitation of natural resources and the enslavement of people via the transatlantic slave trade. South America is similarly large in scale, perhaps due to the Dutch involvement in Brazil, Chile, and the Guyanas beginning in the early 1600’s. Present day Australia not only appears as the southernmost land in the right spheroid but also appears mostly unexplored. The Dutch colonization of New Holland (present day Australia) involved mapping the western and northern coast of the land in the mid-1600’s, but at the time of Vischer’s map the eastern and southern coasts were, to his knowledge, nonexistent. North America appears relatively small in size, with California existing as its own land mass.
Layer 3: Illustrations of Fictional People
Description: The「女人国」at the top represents an imaginative land in China where only women live and boys who are born immediately die. 「小人国」and 「一眼国」located closely to 「女人国」 means, “Country of Dwarves” and “Country of One-eyed People”, respectively.「超人國」means “Country of Giants”. Significance: 「女人国」and「小人国」are both fictional lands that originate from Chinese folktales. 「女人国」, or the “Country of Women” perhaps may have served to fulfill the fantasies of Japanese men in which they dreamed of a world where only women existed, or to represent the Japanese women’s urge to be represented in a highly bureaucratic society that granted men with more privileges. 「小人国」, or the “Country of Dwarves” may have symbolized the people’s desire to be of a larger existence both in a physical and figurative sense. 「超人國」, or the “Country of Giants” may have stood for the Japanese fear of the unknown world, thus resulting in an image that people who lived in the farthest distance from Japan were gigantic and perhaps harmful. Furthermore, in Cartographer Sekisui Nagatomo’s world map produced in 1785, there is a description about Brazil stating “the people in Brazil eat male human flesh”, possibly contributing to this rather devilish portrayal of the people of South America. The most interesting feature is「一眼国」, or “Country of One-eyed People”, which was a fictional land that served as a setting for an old Japanese folklore. The moral of the folklore was that if a “regular” two-eyed human went to this country, they would be perceived as “abnormal” for being the only two-eyed person there, hinting the notion that there are many sides to the world people do not know about and therefore should not always assume popular beliefs. These fictional countries and people account for the possibility that the Japanese during this period of isolation believed in and hoped for the existence of a more exotic world outside their borders.
This layer includes tracings of labels, composed of text and black box markers, on the map. Although I cannot read Japanese, I believe these labels are significant because they label minute details on the map. I struggled with tracing a lot of the characters because I am not familiar with Asian languages. I noticed a horizontal line of text in black boxes on the map, which could possibly be a depiction of the equator. Because I cannot read Japanese I decided not to trace the text in the background, and focus on text that can still have significance for viewers who can't read Japanese. The presence of a label, even one that cannot be read, indicates the importance of a land mass.
This layer shows all of the mountains depicted on the map. While the mountains depicted are surely not a comprehensive representation of all of the world's mountains, I found it interesting that they were the only natural landform on the map (besides a few large lakes). The mapmaker considered the presence of mountains important enough to include, perhaps as distinguishing features of different geographical areas or divisors between regions. The inclusion of mountains reveals the maps multi-faceted focus: on physical landforms as well as information about cultures presented by the drawings of people. This map layer is very interesting compared with the "solid colors" layer; the mountains in Asia are colored blue, distinguished from the surrounding orange color, while the mountains in the Americas are the same color (blue) as the surrounding land mass. This contributes to my hypothesis about the hierarchy of colors representing important areas in the increasing order: white, blue, orange, yellow.