The unusable first manual on data graphics
The Austrian colonel Wenzel Unschuld's failed graphic system from 1859.
“The anonymous, failed, neglected Aclands are the slopes. They are silently waiting to be explored.” - Alberto Cairo1
For those who want to read about real classic manuals and practical handbooks on data graphics such as those by Levasseur, Auerbach, Karsten, Mayr, or Brinton, I highly recommend RJ Andrews' wonderful series “Summer of Clarity” on his Chartography. Of course, that's not the only reason I recommend RJ’s Chartography. Anyone interested in the history of visual communication of data and information design, should definitely follow it! In fact, RJ was one of the main inspirations behind the launch of the Cabinet of Infographic Curiosities.
But now let's turn to the work of art of the week in the spirit of the Indian Summer of Unclarity: Wenzel Unschuld’s Leitfaden zur darstellenden Statistik auf topographischen Karten (Guide to presenting statistics on topographic maps) from 1859. The book was published in Hermannstadt (Nagyszeben, today is Sibiu, Romania). The work consists of three parts, with the two textual sections accompanied by an illustrated appendix on types of statistical diagram types designed and recommended by Unschuld. The appendix (Tafeln) is the one that really catches our attention.
We have relatively detailed information about Wenzel Unschuld's life. He was born in Prague in 1814. He completed his studies at the Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt. He rose through the ranks of the Habsburg Imperial Army, serving as lieutenant, brigade commander, captain, major, colonel, and finally field marshal. In addition, from 1842 he taught cartography and situation drawing at the Academy. He actively participated on the side of the imperial troops in the military events of the Hungarian Revolution and War of Independence of 1848-49 (at the battles of Nagysalló, Komárom, Szeged, Temesvár). After the defeat of the Hungarian War of Independence, he became director of the official mapping of Transylvania, and from 1862 he participated in Austria's official surveying and mapping. In 1866, he was discharged and retired from military service. That same year, emperor Franz Joseph I. awarded him the Imperial Order of the Iron Crown, one of the highest recognitions of the Habsburg Empire, which automatically granted him the title of knight and nobleman, and he then took the predicate “von Melasfeld”. Later, he moved with his family to Krems an der Donau. Besides Leitfaden, he wrote another manual. The Terrainlehre eine gesonderte Wissenschaft (Terrain studies as a separate science) was published in Vienna in 1884. He died in 1896. His daughter, Marie Unschuld von Melasfeld, became a famous, later forgotten pianist and pioneer of modern piano education of her time. She later settled in the US.
I came across Unschuld’s Leitfaden in the Hungarian-language publications of cartographer and map historian Professor István Klinghammer2. Klinghammer mentions it as the first book on the graphic presentation of data. According to Klinghammer “after the Third International Statistical Congress held in Vienna, Wenzel Unschuld published his book in Hermannstadt (Nagyszeben) in 1859. Unschuld wrote his work… without in-depth knowledge of the results of the congress. Despite its numerous tables and multicoloured map appendix, the first book of its kind was not a success, because the rather complicated system it proposed made it difficult to recognize the content presented in graphics.” Besides Klinghammer's comments, there are a few “not that bad” mentions on the book in a couple of German-language reviews by Unschuld’s contemporaries - one even mocks Unschuld’s name (Unschuld=Innocence).3
So why is this book so interesting to us if it remained largely unnoticed even among contemporaries? Partly because of its presumed primacy. The nature of the First Attempt itself is part of our history of visual communication, and it comes from a period when issues of standardization in the graphic presentation of data were not yet part of professional discourse. The other reason is that sometimes we should remind ourselves that the path to good, or better, more appropriate solutions often leads through wrong turns or failures. From Unschuld's biography, we can assume that he was not a bad cartographer or an untalented draftsman. If that had been the case, he would not have been able to teach cartography, surveying, and situation drawing at the famous Wiener Neustadt Military Academy, and he would hardly have been able to become the director of mapping in Transylvania. Although there were already plenty of examples of quantitative data being displayed on maps - like Dupin’s choropleth method, Milecz’s4/Harness’ flow method, Minard’s diagram method – they cannot be said to be widespread at all. Unschuld either did not know about these methods or did not consider them suitable. Perhaps the first is true. Unschuld writes the following in the preface to the Leitfaden5:
While purely topographical maps are for descriptive geography, topographical-statistical maps should be for descriptive, comparative and administrative statistics.
If a method of representation can now be established whereby each statistical object, alone or in conjunction with several others, is clearly, distinctly and truthfully illustrated according to its topographical distribution and quantitative ratio, then the palpable need for the second part of cartography mentioned above will be met.
Once science has this tool at its disposal, only then will body and soul be united in cartography, the spirit will be breathed into the dead body, and only then will true intellectual life and genuine thought begin where, until now, the skilful and clear representation of the rigid has bound the inquiring mind to the dead earth's crust.
Guided by a very simple idea, I have attempted to break new ground in what has hitherto seemed such a difficult problem, and I believe that I have succeeded in the most fruitful way through the proven success of numerous applications.
I will therefore explain in the following pages the system by which I have succeeded in producing topographical and statistical overview maps, and I have no doubt that this will provide everyone with a much-needed aid in designing this new type of map, whether for self-study or for publication.
And he concludes the book by sharing these final thoughts with the reader.6
Let everyone admit that the name “statistics” has caused an involuntary antipathy in a very large part even among the most inquisitive class of people, because it has always been associated with an incalculable quantity of accumulated figures in tables, without anyone having taken the trouble to look more deeply into this branch of knowledge, which is actually of great interest to every member of society, for the purpose of mutual comparison.
Indeed, how many, even among the more intelligent classes of people, are there who are barely familiar with the name “statistics,” let alone understand what this important subject deals with?
Just a few of the topographical-statistical overview maps made public are enough to arouse a high degree of interest in this important branch of science among all classes of the population.
Everyone will instinctively follow the colour of their nation, their religion, their age group, the natural products they are familiar with, and the livestock population, and make comparisons with the more or less of their district, their circle, their country, their community. All they need for this reflection is the visual judgment to assess the greater or lesser colour expansion of the manifold statistical objects.
This guide therefore forms, through its underlying idea, the key to the overview designs of the quantity and distribution ratios of all objects in the field of statistics, according to which everyone is enabled to design for themselves the most appropriate representation key for their own study, for special and general purposes, for teaching, etc. to design the most appropriate presentation key for themselves, in order to then compile their topographical-statistical comparative overview map as they need it, for their own use or for the public.
It offers the richest source of overviews for almost every branch of science, covering many subjects whose mutually beneficial comparison would often be lost to memory without this illustration.
These are clear thoughts and reasons, which were also echoed in later manuals and handbooks. What happened was that Unschuld's ambition, imagination, and creative drive did not meet the requirements of practicality and clarity. He created and proposed a complex graphic system that made it impossible to view the quantities on the graphics with relative ease. The history of data visualization is full of such visual solutions, we still encounter them every day, and many of us have also created visualizations with almost incomprehensible visual signs. I certainly did, and sometimes I still feel tempted to create them even today. But let's take a look at Unschuld's experiments below!
To be honest, even though they seem extremely complicated, I’m still impressed by Unschuld’s crazy creativity in combining different shapes and other visual signs. I wonder what Nicholas Rougeux would do with them.
All images are in the public domain and are available in digitized form for download at Austrian National Library’s digital archive. Next week, we will learn about a unique graphic method from Portugal!
Alberto Cairo: Heroes of Visualization: John Snow, H.W. Acland, and the Mythmaking Problem. Peachpit May 29 2013.
Klinghammer, István: A grafikus módszerek szerepe a statisztikai kongresszusokon (The role of the graphic method at the statistical congresses). In Klinghammer, Török and Pápay: Kartográfiatörténet (History of Cartography), Budapest: ELTE Eötvös, 1995
For instance: in Zeitschrift für allgemeine Erdkunde, 1860, Vol. 8, pp. 427–428.
One day, I will write about the map that predates Henry Drury Harness’s flow map by 60(!) years.
Leitfaden, 1859, pp 1–2.
Ibid: pp. 94–95.