Category: Illustration

Old Maps of Future Floodings

There are many projects for the visualisation of the effects of rising sea levels. The US-American company Climate Central presents dozens of photo-realistic images of potentially flooded areas. Like the flooded Super Bowl Stadium in Florida:

They even offer animated gifs and other before-after-imagery. In this example a section of Hamburg in Germany now (left side) and 50 years from now (right).

A different approach is the speculative cartography by designer Jeffrey Linn. His “retrofuture” maps appear like antiques but depict future scenarios. In this case, a partially flooded San Francisco Bay. His work is for sale here

USA; 21. Century; Christian; Photography, Maps, Illustration; Cities: San Franscisco, Hamburg

Vineta on a map from 1693

A map of the Swedish state survey of Pomerania, the first comprehensive cadastre of a German territory, shows how much the sunken city in the sea fascinated the contemporaries. Towards the end of the 17th century, Swedish land surveyors had mapped and described Western Pomerania, which had fallen to Sweden in the Peace of Westphalia. This resulted in more than 1700 colored maps. Only in one case did the cartographers add a decorative depiction to the map image. It is the map of Koserow and Damerow on the island of Usedom. A city view with baroque gabled houses, city wall, gate and castle has been added above the map image and painted over with a transparent blue. From the Latin description we can gather that this is the famous sunken city of Vineta. So the Swedes suspected Vineta before Damerow.
Source (german): https://www.kulturwerte-mv.de/Landesarchiv/Archivalien/Bisherige-Beitr%C3%A4ge/2009-09-Vineta-auf-einer-Karte-schwedischer-Landmesser/

Germany; 17. Century; Christian; Illustration on Map; City: Vineta

Gustave Doré: The New Zealander

Last image from Gustave Doré‘s Book “London – A Pilgrimage” (1872). Detailed Information.

France; 19. Century; Christian; Illustration; City: London

Franz Karl Basler-Kopp (1879–1937): Der Schimmelreiter

German painter Basler-Kopp painted two images in 1924 after Thodor Storm’s novel “Rider on the White Horse” one of the best knows examples of German literary realism of late 19. Century. Contrary ot the genre of the text, these images are clearly rooted in romanticism but also show the influence of early expressionism. (Basler-Kopp was best knwon for his fairytale illustrations.) They give a good example of the allure of flooding and extreme coastal weather events had on the visual arts at the time.