The Blue Maps of China: Considerations of Materiality and Function in China and Japan

Abstract

In China, during the early decades of the nineteenth century, two series of large format maps, one terrestrial and one celestial, were printed using blue colourant. The pigment used for the blue colour was Prussian blue, making these maps probably the earliest large-scale application of the use of this colourant in China. Also unusual, as in typical map printing practices the outlines and texts are printed on a white ground, is that these maps were printed in the opposite, in the Chinese manner of rubbings. The combination of size, colour, and presentation formats made these maps unique objects, and these visually striking qualities quickly made them popular in China and Japan. This chapter will introduce the production and distribution circumstances and the materiality of these maps, in an effort to more fully understand how these maps functioned in early nineteenth century China and Japan.