Colour-Coded Manuscript Maps in the Military Enlightenment

Abstract

Manuscript military maps operated according to a specific colour code, reinforced by reformed military academies in the eighteenth century. They attest to the specific map-mindedness of the British military enlightenment. Student notebooks and manuscript maps have a poor survival rate, but they were extensively used for military training and pedagogy. They circulated within a transnational network of officers and engineers who disseminated innovations in military cartography. The skills required for these maps added to perspective and geometry skills the mastery of landscape watercolour techniques and the knowledge of a color-coding specific to the military and its affordances. This article analyses the drawing curriculum at the royal military academy of Woolwich, offers an overview of the colour code’s adoption as well as a material biography of its six specific pigments, and shows that the artistic quality of these maps was an integral part of their function.

Keywords

• pigment
• manuals
• circulation
• engineers
• curriculum