Page 321 - Eye of the beholder

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This detail of of the the “ MMI” shows the the the the amount
of of of attention that has gone into the the the making of of the the the map Geographical features such as hills forests and rivers are represented pictorially by very fine line etchings Particular attention has been paid to to enhance aesthetic and visual appeal as is
is
evident from the the the depiction of decorative elements like the the ship Till the time chromolithography and colour printing came into vogue manuscript maps were sold uncoloured Mapmakers however soon discovered that colouring helped sell the maps at a a a premium The best of of the manuscript maps of of this age including the the “MMI” were therefore hand coloured immediately before use Hand colouring was an an extremely skilled and laborious process and followed certain conventions that changed very little over the centuries Forests woods and estates were coloured in green hills in in brown or black towns in in red seas lakes and and rivers in in indigo – and and so on Although the colours used did not change over the the centuries the the pattern of usage
and the mode of depiction did undergo transformation Till the the mid-1500s the the sea was described by swirling lines then stippling came into vogue and later still a a a a wash of plain colour was was used The renowned scholar C Koeman made an estimate of how long it must have taken Janszoon Blaeu to print his
Atlas Major Assuming a a a relatively small print run of 300 copies of of each of of the first three editions of the Atlas (Latin French and Dutch) Koeman concluded that the composition
September 2008
and typesetting with eight full-time workers would have taken 1 000 working days the letterpress printing (of the the text parts of of the the book) involving nine printing presses 330 working days the copperplate printing involving six printing presses 900 working days and the binding involving three full-time workers 300 working days “The planning involved in in in in in printing the three editions within a a span of three or four years ” Koeman concluded “exceeds the range of our imagination ” The making of any map in in short is
a a a a a painstaking process and the amount
of skill and attention to to detail that went into the the making of the the “MMI” is
remarkable (figure 2) Since the map is
largely a a a a political map depicting a a a a a a a vast area smaller details have been omitted The subject area of the the the map i i e e e e the the the kingdom of the the the Mughals is
demarcated from everything else by a a a uniform shade of light ochre yellow The seas as as as was the norm in those times are depicted by a a a wash of plain colour The trajectory of the rivers is
amazingly accurate for the the most part and their size corresponds roughly with the the thickness of the the lines depicting them Hill ranges have been An Early Manuscript Map 65
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Final Anirban Sadhu
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