V I E W P O I N T

Reflections on the Works of Jacques Bertin: From SignTheory to Cartographic Discourse

Takashi Morita

Hosei University, Tokyo, Japan

Email: morita@hosei.ac.jp

Jacques Bertin passed away in May 2010. He published three significant books: Semiology of Graphics (1967), The

Graphics and Graphic Information Processing (1977), and Atlas of World History (1997). They represent three stages of

his works, namely the semiotic approach, the map as a process, and cartographic discourse. The author of this article (a

PhD student in Bertin’s laboratory in the mid-1970s) has monitored Bertin’s achievements for about 40 years. Bertin’s

theories may be easier to apply in the digital information era and may help to create the ideal image of today’s

cartographer: that is, a ‘complete cartographer’.

INTRODUCTION

Every International Cartographic Association (ICA) mem-ber accepts the importance of Jacques Bertin’s achievementsin the domain of cartography, but it seems there are fewdocuments that describe the evolution of his achievements.Each of his books could be seen as representing three stages(Figure 1): the semiotic approach in Semiology of Graphics(in French 1967, in English 1983 and 2010), the map as aprocess in The Graphics and Graphic Information Processing(1977), and cartographic discourse in Atlas of World History(1997). Among them, the semiotic approach is the mostwell-known achievement because of the development of theconcept of visual variables. Graphic information processing isalso the key concept for the use of the map for dynamicextraction of meanings by the manipulation of images usinghuman visual perception. Cartographic discourse is thesuperstructure of a set of maps ordered like a story withtext, which is not a simple collection of different maps but aform of storytelling consisting of maps. These represent anevolution, from sign theory; how to make a map, tocartographic discourse; and how to communicate a set ofmaps in a holistic way as a ‘complete’ cartographer.

BRIEF CHRONOLOGY

Figure 2 shows an overall image of the different periods ofBertin’s life. He was born in 1918 just after World War I(1914–1918). After studying geography/cartography, heobtained a superior license in cartography (1937) from theUniversity of Paris and then started work for Hachette (apublishing company). Meanwhile, World War II (1939–1945) broke out. After the war, from 1947 to 1957, while inhis thirties, he worked at the National Scientific Research

Center and founded the Laboratory of Cartography at theEcole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Sorbonne) in 1954. Hepublished his first book, Semiology of Graphics, after 10 yearsof running his laboratory. In the 1970s, there was economicstagnation caused by the energy crisis, but this did not preventhim publishing his second book, Graphics and GraphicInformation Processing, 10 years after his first book. Thisdevelopment was assisted by his colleagues of the laboratory topublish two books (Bonin, 1975; Gimeno, 1980). This latterbook was on the method of graphic processing in the dawn ofuse of the personal computer. He retired in 1985 butcontinued his work, and his efforts came to fruition with theAtlas of World History via the chief cartographer of HumanityAtlas from Prehistory to the XX Century (in French 1986, inEnglish 1992). The fall of the Berlin wall (1989), the spread ofthe Internet after the appearance of the Internet browser(1990) and the development of multimedia and dynamicbidirectional information and communication technologyhave led to a new era of graphic communication. We shouldre-evaluate Bertin’s works in this context.

CARTOGRAPHIC SYMBOLS

It is well known that cartography uses two kinds of quantitativedata, one for positional data defined by geometry, and theother for attribute data describing quantitative characteristicsof each position. A topographic map is the result of surveyingand mapping, and uses positional data. A thematic map, suchas a statistical map, represents the distribution of attribute dataon a base map that is already geometrically fixed. Both types ofmap use cartographic symbols that are either quantitative orqualitative. The selection and use of cartographic symbols foreach objective is thus essential for the articulation of a map.

The Cartographic Journal Vol. 48 No. 2 pp. 86–91 International Cartographic Conference, Paris 2011-Special Issue May 2011# The British Cartographic Society 2011

DOI: 10.1179/000870411X13038059668604

The systematic use of quantitative information for attributedata was already common in the French school of thematicmapping in nineteenth century (Palsky and Robic, 2009). Itwas used, for example, by Charles Dupin (1784–1873) for thechoropleth map, and by Charles Minard (1781–1870) fordifferent statistical maps (Figure 3). They were both engineerswho used statistical maps as basic sources in general surveyingfor the pre-planning of infrastructure or as materials to assistwith justification of their planning or persuasion of the publicin regard to it. In a statistical map, the notion of proportionalrepresentation conforming to the gravity of the value, thedistribution of dots represents density, the size of the sign

represents the importance of the value, the width of linerepresents the quantity of flow between two points, and thedifferent values of zones represent the proportional values ofdifferent regions. The last work of Minard was on the ex-pedition of Napoleon to Moscow in 1812–1813 (Figure 4),which used a flow map to show the difficulties caused by thesignificant reduction in the number of soldiers in his armybefore reaching Moscow. It is really a map designed for visualcommunication based on information from the reports ofgenerals who were present.

As for geographers, they made efforts to make synthetic mapsof regions using topographic base maps composed of mainlyqualitative symbols for the discrimination of different geogra-phical phenomena. As for the legend, we can see the notion ofsystematic classification of cartographic symbols by point, lineand zone. Furthermore, there are often textual notes inside thesame map for the description of the method of codification ofsymbols and the form of observation that was expected to bediscovered, which is not usual in contemporary cartography.

Throughout the nineteenth century, there was anaccumulation of techniques of cartographic representation,especially for quantitative information, but an overalltheoretical framework of making and using cartographicsymbols as a sign system was not proposed.

SEMIOLOGY OF GRAPHICS

In his lecture in the mid-1970s at Ecole des Hautes Etudesen Sciences Sociales in Paris, the author of this article was a

Figure 1. Three stages of Bertin’s approach to the domain of cartography

Figure 2. Brief chronology of Jacques Bertin

Reflections on the Works of Jacques Bertin 87

PhD student in his laboratory at that time, Bertin explainedhow he had arrived at the concept of visual variables. Hesaid that he had begun to collect different maps anddiagrams and when the stacks reached his own height, hesorted these examples into two groups: good (reasonable)and bad (aberrant). Then he studied what was common inthe good group and the bad group until he arrived at theconcept of visual variables. For Bertin, ‘good’ and ‘bad’maps are distinguished by the notion of the efficiency oflegibility: a map to ‘see’ provides instant perception, while amap to ‘read’ requires more effort to perceive. To verify theefficiency of the visual variables, the author made apsychophysical examination through the eye movementmeasurement method (Figure 5), which was reported byMorita in Mexico (1987).

Bertin’s study was meta-sign research, but he said thathe had no idea in advance about the semiotic approach.He gradually summarized the properties of the graphicimage (Figure 6) by the XY plane and the Z attribute:

six visual variables (size, value, texture, colour, orienta-tion and shape), three meanings (quantitative, ordi-nal and differential) and three types of sign (point, lineand zone). Minard used these elements one century ago,but never developed a comprehensive notion of a signsystem.

Bertin had also insisted on the ubiquitousness of visualperception. When we read an image, we have three levelsof perception: a whole image, a partial area and anelement. For visual perception, switching between them isalmost automatic without special effort, from detail to thewhole level. This instance is the essential characteristic of avisual image. Bertin said that vision is ubiquitous. Theauthor was very impressed by the word ‘ubiquitous’ sothat the ICA Commission on Ubiquitous Mapping(established in 2003 by the author) was named adoptingthis special word 20 years later from Bertin’s lecture.Now, the notion of ‘ubiquitous’ is more than variations inscale, but it includes the concept of responding to the

Figure 3. Statistic Maps of Charles Minard (source: Library of ENPC)

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Figure 4. Expedition of Napoleon to Moscow in 1812–1813 by Charles Minard (source: Library of ENPC)

Figure 5. Eye movement of visual variables

Reflections on the Works of Jacques Bertin 89

needs for immediate contextual adaptation of making andusing maps, namely, mapping as a dynamic process usingcontemporary ITC devices. Bertin conceived the signsystem as a form of operational graphics to discover thehidden structure of the phenomena derived from thearticulation of visual patterns. This dynamic process thenled the next step.

GRAPHIC PROCESSING

Transcription of data by a sign system into a graphic image is abasic way of visualizing spatial information, but in general it isthought that the image is fixed once it is transcribed. Bertinproposed that a graphic image could be utilized to support thedynamic process of thinking by arranging both the XYposition and Z attribute sign according to the advancements inunderstanding of analysis and objective. Use of these functionsis the operational graphics and graphic thinking. The structureof a diagram and network could be altered so that they are

more understandable, multivariate analysis could be visualizedby an orderable matrix to make visual groups in permutationsof columns and lines, and the interval distance between classesof a statistic map could be changeable so that a significantstructure was uncovered. Moreover, if the orderable matrixcontained spatial information, the results could be synchro-nized with the spatial distribution on a map, and vice versa.

At Bertin’s laboratory, these methods were implementedusing old media such as sheets of paper, cards and plasticcubes employing an orderable matrix. Nowadays, this couldbe transposed to new media, such as to the displays ofelectronic information devices.

CARTOGRAPHIC DISCOURSE

If the objective is to make a topographic map, thetranscription from surveying data to a map is relativelysimple because the use of cartographic symbols is usuallyfixed in advance. However, if a thematic map is being made,

Figure 6. Property of the image (source: http://cartographie.sciences-po.fr/en/image_et_variables_visuelles)

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trial and error is required, which is a dynamic process ofproposition and verification of a sign system. If there aremany maps to consider under a theme, it is necessary todescribe the development of the story. There are probablythree types of cartographer: the topographic map carto-grapher, the thematic map cartographer and the storytellingcartographer. Bertin became a storytelling cartographerthrough his Atlas of World History – Panorama of WorldHistory. There, the spatial framework is the world map andit is possible to zoom in on regions if necessary. The timeframework goes back seven million years and is slicedbasically into centuries, but because of the difference indensity of given knowledge, the time span is wider beforethe tenth century BC and closer after the eighteenthcentury AD. Thus, the time–space framework is clear, andthe development of humanity is represented by a compre-hensive schema. In every time section, a slice is described bya world map and the text is supported by diagrams, photos,and detailed maps. By this system, we can understand thelocation of each event, and discover the distance betweenevents in time–space, and the presence or absence ofsynchronisation between events. Bertin has finally become aholistic and complete cartographer.

The completeness might be like a person who draws amap on the ground with a stick explaining a story(Figure 7), who is a primitive but real and completecartographer. This situation contains the elements of senderand recipient, map, verbal explication, real world and adynamic process of communication.

CONCLUSIONS

Bertin’s work could be divided into three parts. He seemsto recognize cartography (and graphics) as a dynamicgraphic information system: making a map (from data/information to graphic symbols), manipulating a map (re-ordering graphic symbols in their position and configura-tion of visual groups) and communicating a map (proposinga cartographic story). His theory is easier to apply in thedigital information era and may help to create the idealimage of today’s cartographer, a ‘complete cartographer’.

The great earthquake occurred in the east part of Japanon 11 March 2011. People are recognizing the significance

of maps for providing urgent spatial information andfacilitating communication. Moreover, the importance ofthe ‘map to see’ instead of the ‘map to read’ has beenshown, as well as the necessity of cartographic discourseinstead of fragmented verbal information without clear geo-spatial meaning. The legacy of Bertin is to provide aframework to enable people to make clear maps.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

Takashi Morita is currentlya Professor at Faculty ofEngineering and Design,Hosei University in Tokyo,where he teaches cartogra-phy/geographic informationscience, visual communica-tion and visualisation ofplanning. He got his PhDdegree in France under thedirection of Jacques Bertinfrom Ecole des HautesEtudes en Sciences So-ciales, Paris, in the late1970s, and he has translated

Bertin’s book La graphique et le traitement graphique del’information into Japanese (1982) after going back to Japan.He was a Vice President of ICA (1999–2003), a Chair of ICACommission on Ubiquitous Mapping (2003–2011), and heis a Chair of National Committee for Cartography, JapanScience Council, since 2000.

REFERENCES

Bertin, J. (1967). Semiologie graphique: Les diagrammes, lesreseaux, les cartes, Mouton, Paris.

Bertin, J. (1977). La graphique et le traitement graphique del’information, Flammarion, Paris.

Bertin, J. (1981). Graphics and Graphic Information Processing, deGruyter, Berlin/New York (in German translated by Scharfe, W.and in Japanese translated by Morita, T., 1982).

Bertin, J. (1983). Semiology of Graphics: Diagrams, Networks,Maps, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI.

Bertin, J. (1997). Atlas Historique Universel -Panorama del’histoire du monde, Editions de Minerva SA, Geneva.

Bertin, J. (2010). Semiology of Graphics: Diagrams NetworksMaps, ESRI Press, Redlands, CA.

Bertin, J. and Vidal-Naquet, P. (1992). The Harper Atlas of WorldHistory, Harper Collins, New York.

Bonin, S. (1975). Initiation a la Graphiques, L’Epi, Paris.Giemeno, R. (1980). Apprendre a l’ecole par la graphique, Retz,

Paris. (Gimeno, R. 1978, L’enseignement par la graphique -Lescahiers de la graphique, Laboratoire de la Graphique de l’EHESS,Paris).

Morita, T. (1987). ‘Measurement of eye movements for the mapdesign evaluation’, in 13th ICA Conference, Vol. 1, Morelia,Mexico, Oct 12–21, pp. 578–590.

Palsky, G. and Robic, M.-C. (2009). ‘Aux sources de la semiologygraphique’, Cybergeo: European Journal of Geography,Colloque ‘30 ans de semiology graphique’, article 147, mis enligne le 17 novembre 2000, modifie le 14 mai 2009. http://cybergeo.revues.org/554

Vidal-Naquet, P. and Bertin, J. (1986). Le Grand Livre de l’Histoiredu Monde, Hachette, Paris.

Figure 7. Primitive/complete cartographer

Reflections on the Works of Jacques Bertin 91

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