ABSTRACT
L’oeil cartographique pratique un baroque de la surface, qui couple le détail et l’infini, l’information visible-lisible et la réalisation d’un fantasme de totalité.
Christine Buci-Glucksmann
[The cartographic eye practices a baroque of the surface, which couples detail with infinity, visible and readable information with the realization of a fantasy of totality.]
In her analysis of the cartographic eye of art, Christine Buci-Glucksmann underscores the significance of point of view. Topographer or cartographer, artist or essayist, at stake in the representation of space is the organization and depiction of subjective perspective. For it is the vantage point of the viewer that reveals both one’s perspective on an object and the relation one bears to and with the spaces through which one moves. This idea of “relation” bears pause. In the Renaissance, the term “relation” has multiple significations. It designates travel and exploration narratives, refers to the link between geographical places and also to the relations (economic or political) that one might establish with these other places or individuals. It also designates a famous collection of early modern indigenous maps, the relaciones géograficas, a series of maps and manuscripts produced between 1578 and 1585 for Philip II of Spain as a visual chronicle of his holdings in New Spain.1
