Map pictures

‘Detailed itinerary map of great Japan’ (Dai Nihon saiken dōchū zukan 大日本細見道中図鑑), woodcut, color, c. 1850, University of Zurich, Japan Library.

This exercise is about pictures in the ‘Detailed itinerary map of great Japan’ (Dai Nihon saiken dōchū zukan). Pay attention to the picture on the cover. Two cranes in front of a rising sun are above a scene, showing a traveler with a bundle on his back, who is running on a road. The picture is in the style of mid-nineteenth-century woodblock print series, showing “Views of Famous Places Along the Tōkaidō.” Pictures in old maps are not only ornamental, but like symbols they may serve as codes, which offer the reader spatial information. This is what you will learn in the following exercise.