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Embodying Landscape, Transposing Space

Embodying Landscape, Transposing Space

François Matthes's topographical maps of the Grand Canyon

Nicholas Bauch
Geographer-in-Residence
Spatial History Project
Stanford University

#nacis2015

Nathaniel V. KELSO

October 15, 2015
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  1. Embodying Landscape, Transposing Space François Matthes's topographical maps of the

    Grand Canyon Nicholas Bauch Geographer-in-Residenc Spatial History Project Stanford University
  2. Powell “wanted to map, carefully, with a consistent system of

    symbols and colors, and on a scale large enough to serve all normal foreseeable uses, the 3,000,000 square miles of the United States.” - Wallace Stegner, 1954
  3. Image Source: U.S. Coast Survey. 1869. The Plane- Table and

    its use in Topographical Surveying. New York: D. Van Nostrand.
  4. “The topography of the Grand Canyon proved to be next

    to ideal for plane-table methods …. Thousands of intersections and hundreds of elevations from one instrument station, - there is no other place on earth where it can be done.” - Francois Matthes, 1905
  5. Francois Matthes topographical crew mapping the Grand Canyon. Ca. 1904.

    Courtesy Grand Canyon National Park Museum Collection.
  6. Henry G. Peabody, A Grove of Pines in the Kaibab

    Forest, 1928. Courtesy The Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.
  7. Henry G. Peabody, Up Grand Canyon from Bright Angel Point,

    1928. Courtesy The Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.
  8. “The map (not just the plotting but the actual map)

    grows under your hand right out there in the field! …. It's mapping direct from nature, at first hand, like a painter with a landscape.” - David Greenhood, 1964
  9. William Henry Holmes, Panorama From Point Sublime, Part II Looking

    South, 1882. Courtesy David Rumsey Map Collection.
  10. Henry G. Peabody, Looking East From Grand Scenic Divide, 1899.

    Courtesy The Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.
  11. Thank you! [email protected] Detail from Bright Angel Quadrangle, 1906. Francois

    Matthes, topographer. Courtesy Branner Library, Stanford University.
  12. “The most magnificent picture of the Grand Canyon ever drawn,

    painted, or photographed .... Nearly diagramatic, it reproduces rock strata with miraculous accuracy - which is precisely what it was intended to do .... Not intended to be art, it succeeds in being art of a striking kind.” - Wallace Stegner, 1977