Culture as a Dinamic: Miguel Covarrubias’ Cartographic Art

Abstract

Miguel Covarrubias was part of a group of artist —along with Roberto Montenegro, Antonio Ruiz and Carlos Mérida— that took interest in the study and design of maps. Either as murals or as book illustra-tions, Covarrubias made a large collection of artistic maps that reveal his deep knowledge of the cartographic traditions. This paper aims to unveil and explore Covarrubias’ way of translating his ideas about the art studies in order to solve a geographic problem. I’ll take some maps as case studies, and relate them with contemporary ideas about the cultural geography. Those who devoted their attention to this kind of studies recognized that one could easily move between anthropology, archeology or history and geography subjects without restrictions or disciplinary borders.