Kaart van Zuid-Holland, 1940 c. 1947

This ‘Kaart van Zuid-Holland’ was made by Studio Certo in 1940, and it’s a map, so maybe we shouldn’t call it a painting, but I can’t help it. I love maps. They’re not just about getting from A to B, but about how we see and frame the world. Look at the stork down in the bottom left. That’s a great stork! Did you know that Holland means ‘wood-land’ in old English? And this map is like a little world of its own, a territory captured in ink and color. I love the idea of artists as cartographers, charting not just physical space, but emotional and intellectual terrain. How do we navigate our lives? What symbols and signs do we use to make sense of where we are? I imagine the makers, bending over their table, carefully plotting each town, each river, each little detail that makes this place unique. We all make maps of our lives, don’t we, filled with landmarks, detours, and maybe even a few hidden treasures.