I tend to view this more as a phrase not to be parsed out than a recipe for what makes me a cartographer. I am not some fixed portion artist or scientist, but when I work as a cartographer I employ degrees of each and that may vary by the work or even my mood. The process is melded in my view. The ‘art’ in art & science describes the human factor but is not to be equated with ‘fine art’. I don’t think that was ever the link that phrase attempted to make. I would regard it closer to ‘craft’ in it’s implication. I’m not sure if there is a real distinction between craft and art here. I did hear an interesting quote on NPR recently about the distinction between craft and profession regarding photo journalism, “Journalism is not a profession. It’s a craft. So you don’t need any training to become one” (Greg Marinovich). Could the same be said about cartography? Maybe, although I think probably not and that may be why we adhere to the phrase as whole to describe what we do.

Also see J.B. Krygier’s article on the subject at http://go.owu.edu/~jbkrygie/krygier_html/art_sci.html

ALso see the provocative spring 2003 issue of Cartographic Perspectives: http://www.nacis.org/documents_upload/cp45spring2003.pdf

I think my central take-away from all that, is that “art” (e.g. fine art) as a field of inquiry, necessarily does not intersect with “cartography” as a field of inquiry. The first, in its classical invocation, denies “usefulness,” whereas cartography is all about creating useful tools.

While it is tempting to call the human-mechanical aspects of cartography “art” and “science,” this is misleading. Both of these fields (can we call them fields?) has a fundamental, ideological heart. For fine art, it is the expression of the human spirit or a greater-than-human spirit, an attempt to reach the ineffable through the effable materials of creation. For science, it is the cycle of hypothesis, repeatable experiment, and evidence.

While there are elements of all of these, cartography as a field—and I’m not equating “cartography” with “mapmaking”, because anyone can make a map of any material, and there IS a broad consensus amongst professional map makers and organizations of at least the outlines of judgement of quality—does not put these values front and center. Maps may be arguments, but they are not hypotheses (despite what Denis Wood tries to argue). They are grounded in a culturally agreed-upon basis of geographical fact: while we may disagree how to present a thing or quality that is here and not there, in order to make a “good” map we agree that that thing or quality should be self-evident or measurable. “Bad mapping” includes making stuff up.

Is this science? kind of, but more in the old sense of descriptive Natural History, which is different from the must-be-quantified ideology of more recent science. It has a culture to it, and admits to that culture.

As to the argument towards a human interaction: why must this be “Art”? That is such a loaded term, and there are all the rest of the Humanities to pick on… why not “literature” or “craft” or “human touch”? It’s not that this quality is unneeded or outdated, but that the notion that if it’s visual and clearly made by a person, it must be art.

One of the results of thinking of the human touch as “art,” it seems to me, is the kind of faux-humanised mapping: faux-antique, faux-childish, faux-textured. It’s a veneer, not a real exploration of what it means to make a map as a child or a copper-engraver or a printer on parchment. It cheapens the real understanding that comes through research, maybe through trying to make a map in someone else’s shoes. And in the end it’s a little disrespectful of the lost times those actual old maps came out of, and of the enormous work that often went into making them.

Sorry to ramble so long, but this post struck a nerve. I hope I have not offended, too much…