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 Introduction to GIS
Programming and
Fundamentals with Python
and ArcGIS®
 Introduction to GIS
Programming and
Fundamentals with Python
and ArcGIS®

Chaowei Yang
With the collaboration of
Manzhu Yu
Qunying Huang
Zhenlong Li
Min Sun
Kai Liu
Yongyao Jiang
Jizhe Xia
Fei Hu
CRC Press
Taylor & Francis Group
6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300
Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742
© 2017 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
CRC Press is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business
No claim to original U.S. Government works
Printed on acid-free paper
International Standard Book Number-13: 978-1-4665-1008-1 (Hardback)
This book contains information obtained from authentic and highly regarded
sources. Reasonable efforts have been made to publish reliable data and
information, but the author and publisher cannot assume responsibility for the
validity of all materials or the consequences of their use. The authors and
publishers have attempted to trace the copyright holders of all material
reproduced in this publication and apologize to copyright holders if permission to
publish in this form has not been obtained. If any copyright material has not been
acknowledged please write and let us know so we may rectify in any future
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intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Yang, Chaowei, author.

Title: Introduction to GIS programming and fundamentals with
Python and ArcGIS / Chaowei Yang.
Description: Boca Raton, FL : Taylor & Francis, 2017.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016047660| ISBN 9781466510081 (hardback :
alk. paper) | ISBN 9781466510098 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Geographic information systems--Design. | Python
(Computer program language) | ArcGIS
Classification: LCC G70.212 .Y36 2017 | DDC 910.285/53--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016047660

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For Chaowei Yang's parents, Chaoqing Yang and Mingju Tang,

for continually instilling curiosity and an exploring spirit

Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
Editor
Contributors

Section I Overview

1. Introduction
1.1 Computer Hardware and Software
1.2 GIS and Programming
1.3 Python
1.4 Class and Object
1.5 GIS Data Models
1.6 UML
1.7 Hands-On Experience with Python
1.8 Chapter Summary
Problems

2. Object-Oriented Programming
2.1 Programming Language and Python
2.2 Class and Object
2.2.1 Defining Classes
2.2.2 Object Generation
2.2.3 Attributes
2.2.4 Inheritance
2.2.5 Composition
2.3 Point, Polyline, and Polygon
2.4 Hands-On Experience with Python
 2.5 Chapter Summary
Problems

Section II Python Programming

3. Introduction to Python
3.1 Object-Oriented Support
3.2 Syntax
3.2.1 Case Sensitivity
3.2.2 Special Characters
3.2.3 Indentation
3.2.4 Keywords
3.2.5 Multiple Assignments
3.2.6 Namespace
3.2.7 Scope
3.3 Data Types
3.3.1 Basic Data Types
3.3.2 Composite Data Types
3.4 Miscellaneous
3.4.1 Variables
3.4.2 Code Style
3.5 Operators
3.6 Statements
3.7 Functions
3.8 Hands-On Experience with Python
3.9 Chapter Summary
Problems

4. Python Language Control Structure, File

Input/Output, and Exception Handling
4.1 Making Decisions
4.2 Loops
4.3 Other Control Structures
4.4 File Input/Output
4.5 Exceptions
 4.6 Hands-On Experience with Python
4.6.1 Find the Longest Distance between Any Two
Points
4.6.2 Hands-On Experience: I/O, Create and Read a
File
4.6.3 Hands-On Experience: I/O, Flow Control, and
File
4.6.4 Hands-On Experience: Input GIS Point Data
from Text File
4.7 Chapter Summary
Problems

5. Programming Thinking and Vector Data Visualization

5.1 Problem: Visualizing GIS Data
5.2 Transforming Coordinate System
5.2.1 How to Determine Ratio Value?
5.3 Visualizing Vector Data
5.4 Point, Polyline, Polygon
5.5 Programming Thinking
5.5.1 Problem Analysis
5.5.2 Think in Programming
5.5.3 Match Programming Language Patterns and
Structure
5.5.4 Implement Program
5.6 Hands-On Experience with Python
5.6.1 Reading, Parsing, and Analyzing Text File Data
5.6.2 Create GIS Objects and Check Intersection
5.7 Chapter Summary
Problems

6. Shapefile Handling
6.1 Binary Data Manipulation
6.2 Shapefile Introduction
6.3 Shapefile Structure and Interpretation
6.3.1 Main File Structure of a Shapefile
 6.3.1.1 Main File Header
6.3.1.2 Feature Record
6.3.2 Index File Structure (.shx)
6.3.3 The .dbf File
6.4 General Programming Sequence for Handling
Shapefiles
6.5 Hands-On Experience with Mini-GIS
6.5.1 Visualize Polylines and Polygons
6.5.2 Interpret Polyline Shapefiles
6.6 Chapter Summary
Problems

7. Python Programming Environment

7.1 General Python IDE
7.1.1 Python Programming Windows
7.1.1.1 Command-Line GUI
7.1.1.2 Interactive GUI
7.1.1.3 File-Based Programming
7.1.2 Python IDE Settings
7.1.2.1 Highlighting
7.1.2.2 General Setting of the Programming
Window
7.1.2.3 Fonts Setup for the Coding
7.1.3 Debugging
7.1.3.1 SyntaxError
7.1.3.2 Run-Time Exceptions
7.1.3.3 Handling Exceptions
7.1.3.4 Add Exception Handles and Clean-Up
Actions to File Read/Write
7.2 Python Modules
7.2.1 Module Introduction
7.2.2 Set Up Modules
7.2.3 System Built-In Modules
7.3 Package Management and Mini-GIS
 7.3.1 Regular GIS Data Organization
7.3.2 Mini-GIS Package
7.4 Hands-On Experience with Mini-GIS
7.4.1 Package Management and Mini-GIS
7.4.2 Run and Practice the Mini-GIS Package
7.5 Chapter Summary
Problems

8. Vector Data Algorithms

8.1 Centroid
8.1.1 Centroid of a Triangle
8.1.2 Centroid of a Rectangle
8.1.3 Centroid of a Polygon
8.2 Area
8.2.1 Area of a Simple Polygon
8.2.2 Area of a Polygon with Hole(s)
8.3 Length
8.3.1 Length of a Straight Line Segment
8.3.2 Length of a Polyline
8.4 Line Intersection
8.4.1 Parallel Lines
8.4.2 Vertical Lines
8.5 Point in Polygon
8.5.1 A Special Scenario
8.6 Hands-On Experience with Python
8.6.1 Using Python to Draw a Polygon and Calculate
the Centroid
8.6.2 Using Python to Draw Polygon and Calculate
the Area of Polygon
8.6.3 Using Python to Draw Line Segments and
Calculate the Intersection
8.7 Chapter Summary
Problems
Section III Advanced GIS Algorithms and Their
Programming in ArcGIS

9. ArcGIS Programming
9.1 ArcGIS Programming
9.2 Introduction to ArcPy Package
9.2.1 ArcPy Functions, Classes, and Modules
9.2.2 Programming with ArcPy in ArcMap
9.2.3 Programming with ArcPy in Python Window
outside ArcMap
9.2.4 Using Help Documents
9.3 Automating ArcTools with Python
9.4 Accessing and Editing Data with Cursors
9.4.1 SearchCursor
9.4.2 UpdateCursor
9.4.3 InsertCursor
9.4.4 NumPy
9.5 Describing and Listing Objects
9.5.1 Describe
9.5.2 List
9.6 Manipulating Complex Objects
9.7 Automating Map Production
9.8 Creating ArcTools from Scripts
9.9 Handling Errors and Messages
9.10 External Document and Video Resources
9.11 Implementing Spatial Relationship Calculations Using
ArcGIS
9.12 Summary
9.13 Assignment

10. Raster Data Algorithm

10.1 Raster Data
10.2 Raster Storage and Compression
10.2.1 Run Length Coding
10.2.2 Quad Tree
 10.3 Raster Data Formats
10.3.1 TIFF
10.3.2 GeoTIFF
10.3.3 IMG
10.3.4 NetCDF
10.3.5 BMP
10.3.6 SVG
10.3.7 JPEG
10.3.8 GIF
10.3.9 PNG
10.4 Color Representation and Raster Rendering
10.4.1 Color Representation
10.4.2 Raster Rendering
10.5 Raster Analysis
10.6 Hands-On Experience with ArcGIS
10.6.1 Hands-On Practice 10.1: Raster Color Renders
10.6.2 Hands-On Practice 10.2: Raster Data Analysis:
Find the Area with the Elevation Range between
60 and 100 and the Land Cover Type as
“Forest”
10.6.3 Hands-On Practice 10.3. Access the Attribute
Information of Raster Dataset and Calculate the
Area
10.7 Chapter Summary
Problems

11. Network Data Algorithms

11.1 Network Representation
11.1.1 Basics Network Representation
11.1.2 Directed and Undirected Networks
11.1.3 The Adjacency Matrix
11.1.4 Network Representation in GIS
11.2 Finding the Shortest Path
11.2.1 Problem Statement
 11.2.2 A Brute Force Approach for the Shortest Path
Algorithm
11.2.3 Dijkstra Algorithm
11.3 Types of Network Analysis
11.3.1 Routing
11.3.2 Closest Facility
11.3.3 Service Areas
11.3.4 OD Cost Matrix
11.3.5 Vehicle Routing Problem
11.3.6 Location-Allocation
11.4 Hands-On Experience with ArcGIS
11.5 Chapter Summary
Problems

12. Surface Data Algorithms

12.1 3D Surface and Data Model
12.1.1 Surface Data
12.1.2 Surface Data Model
12.1.2.1 Discrete Data
12.1.2.2 Continuous Data
12.2 Create Surface Model Data
12.2.1 Create Grid Surface Model
12.2.2 Creating TIN Surface Model
12.2.3 Conversion between TIN and Raster Surface
Models
12.3 Surface Data Analysis
12.3.1 Elevation
12.3.2 Slope
12.3.3 Aspect
12.3.4 Hydrologic Analysis
12.4 Hands-On Experience with ArcGIS
12.4.1 Hands-On Practice 12.1: Conversion among
DEM, TIN, and Contours
 12.4.2 Hands-On Practice 12.2: Generate Slope and
Aspect
12.4.3 Hands-On Practice 12.3: Flow Direction
12.5 Chapter Summary
Problems

Section IV Advanced Topics

13. Performance-Improving Techniques

13.1 Problems
13.2 Disk Access and Memory Management
13.2.1 File Management
13.2.2 Comprehensive Consideration
13.3 Parallel Processing and Multithreading
13.3.1 Sequential and Concurrent Execution
13.3.2 Multithreading
13.3.3 Load Multiple Shapefiles Concurrently Using
Multithreading
13.3.4 Parallel Processing and Cluster, Grid, and Cloud
Computing
13.4 Relationship Calculation and Spatial Index
13.4.1 Bounding Box in GIS
13.4.2 Spatial Index
13.5 Hands-On Experience with Mini-GIS
13.5.1 Data Loading with RAM as File Buffer
13.5.2 Data Loading with Multithreading
13.5.3 Bounding Box Checking to Speed Up
Intersection
13.5.4 Line Intersection Using R-Tree Index
13.6 Chapter Summary
Problems

14. Advanced Topics

14.1 Spatial Data Structure
14.1.1 Raster Data Structure in NetCDF/HDF
 14.1.2 Application of NetCDF/HDF on Climate Study
14.2 GIS Algorithms and Modeling
14.2.1 Data
14.2.2 Density Analysis
14.2.3 Regression Analysis (OLS and GWR)
14.3 Distributed GIS
14.3.1 System Architecture
14.3.2 User Interface
14.4 Spatiotemporal Thinking and Computing
14.4.1 Problem: Dust Simulation and Computing
Challenges
14.4.2 Methodology 1: Utilizing High-Performance
Computing to Support Dust Simulation
14.4.3 Methodology 2: Utilizing Spatiotemporal
Thinking to Optimize High-Performance
Computing
14.4.3.1 Dust Storms’ Clustered Characteristics:
Scheduling Methods
14.4.3.2 Dust Storms’ Space–Time Continuity:
Decomposition Method
14.4.3.3 Dust Storm Events Are Isolated:
Nested Model
14.4.4 Methodology 3: Utilizing Cloud Computing to
Support Dust Storm Forecasting
14.5 Chapter Summary
Problems

References
Index
Preface

Why Another GIS Programming Text?

Geographical information system (GIS) has become a popular tool
underpinning many aspects of our daily life from routing for
transportation to finding a restaurant to responding to emergencies.
Convenient GIS tools are developed with different levels of
programming from scripting, using python for ArcGIS, to crafting
new suites of tools from scratch. How much programming is needed
for projects largely depends on the GIS software, types of
applications, and knowledge structure and background of the
application designer and developer. For example, simple scripting
integrates online mapping applications using Google maps.
Customized spatial analyses applications are routinely using ArcGIS
with minimum programming. Many develop an application leveraging
open-source software for managing big data, modeling complex
phenomena, or responding to concurrent users for popular online
systems. The best design and development of such applications
require designers and developers to have a thorough understanding
of GIS principles as well as the skill to choose between commercial
and open-source software options. For most GIS professionals, this
is a challenge because most are either GIS tool end users or
information technology (IT) professionals with a limited
understanding of GIS.
To fill this gap, over the last decade, Chaowei Yang launched an
introductory GIS programming course that was well received.
Enrollment continues to rise and students report positive feedback
once they are in the workplace and use knowledge developed from
the class. To benefit a broader spectrum of students and
professionals looking for training materials to build GIS programming
capabilities, this book is written to integrate and refine the authors’
knowledge accumulated through courses and associated research
projects.
The audience for this book is both IT professionals to learn the GIS
principles and GIS users to develop programming skills. On the one
hand, this book provides a bridge for GIS students and professionals
to learn and practice programming. On the other hand, it also helps
IT professionals with programming experience to acquire the
fundamentals of GIS to better hone their programming skills for GIS
development.
Rather than try to compete with the current GIS programming
literature, the authors endeavor to interpret GIS from a different
angle by integrating GIS algorithms and programming. As a result,
this book provides a practical knowledge that includes fundamental
GIS principles, basic programming skills, open-source GIS
development, ArcGIS development, and advanced topics. Structured
for developing GIS functions, applications, and systems, this book is
expected to help GIS/IT students and professionals to become more
competitive in the job market of GIS and IT industry with needed
programming skills.

What Is Included in the Text?

This book has four sections. Section I (Chapters 1 and 2) is an
overview of GIS programming and introduces computer and
programming from a practical perspective. Python (integral
programming language for ArcGIS) programming is extensively
presented in Section II (Chapters 3 through 8) in the context of
designing and developing a Mini-GIS using hands-on experience
following explanations of fundamental concepts of GIS. Section III
(Chapters 9 through 12) focuses on advanced GIS algorithms and
information on how to invoke them for programming in ArcGIS.
Advanced topics and performance optimization are introduced in
Section IV (Chapters 13 and 14) using the Mini-GIS developed.
Chapter 1 introduces computer, computer programming, and GIS.
In addition, the Unified Markup Language (UML) is discussed for
capturing GIS models implemented through simple Python
programming. Chapter 2 introduces object-oriented programming
and characteristics with examples of basic GIS vector data types of
Point, Polyline, and Polygon.
Chapter 3 introduces Python syntax, operators, statements,
miscellaneous features of functions, and Python support for object-
oriented programming. Using GIS examples, Chapter 4 introduces
Python language control structures, file input/output, and exception
handling. Chapter 5 presents programming thinking using the
visualization of vector data as an example of the workflow of this
critical process in programming. Chapter 6 introduces the Python
integrated programming environment (IDE), modules, package
management, and the Mini-GIS package. Chapter 7 discusses
shapefile formats and steps on how to handle shapefiles within the
Mini-GIS. Chapter 8 introduces vector data processing algorithms
and includes line intersection, centroid, area, length, and point in
polygon. This presentation includes how Mini-GIS/ArcGIS supports
these algorithms.
Chapter 9 bridges Sections II and III by introducing ArcGIS
programming in Python using ArcPy, ArcGIS programming
environment, automating tools, accessing data, describing objects,
and fixing errors. Chapter 10 introduces raster data algorithms,
including raster data format, storage, and compression with hands-
on experience using ArcGIS. Chapter 11 addresses network data
algorithms for representing networks and calculating the shortest
path in principles and using ArcGIS. Chapter 12 explores surface or
3D data representation of 3D data, converting data formats and 3D
analyses for elevation, slope, aspect, and flow direction with
examples in ArcGIS programming.
Chapter 13 introduces performance-improving techniques and
includes storage access and management, parallel processing and
multithreading, spatial index, and other techniques for accelerating
GIS as demonstrated in Mini-GIS. Advanced topics, including GIS
algorithms and modeling, spatial data structure, distributed GIS,
spatiotemporal thinking, and computing, are presented in Chapter
14.

Hands-On Experience
As a practical text for developing programming skills, this book
makes every effort to ensure the content is as functional as possible.
For every introduced GIS fundamental principle, algorithm and
element, an example is explored as a hands-on experience using
Mini-GIS and/or ArcGIS with Python. This learning workflow helps
build a thorough understanding of the fundamentals and naturally
maps to the fundamentals and programming skills.
For system and open-source development, a step-by-step
development of a python-based Mini-GIS is presented. For
application development, ArcGIS is adopted for illustration.
The Mini-GIS is an open-source software developed for this text
and can be adopted for building other GIS applications. ArcGIS, a
commercial product from ESRI, is used to experience state-of-the-art
commercial software. For learning purpose, ArcGIS is available for
free from ESRI.

Online Materials
This book comes with the following online materials:
 • Instructional slides for instructors using this text for classroom
education and professionals to assist in learning GIS
programming.
• Python codes for class exercises and hands-on experiences and
structured and labeled by chapter to code the chapter’s
sequence.
• Mini-GIS as an open-source package for learning the GIS
fundamentals and for exemplifying GIS principles and
algorithms.
• Answers to problems for instructors to check their solutions.

The Audience for and How to Use This Text

This text serves two functions: a text for systematic building GIS
programming skills and a reference for identifying a python solution
for specific GIS algorithms or function from scratch and/or ArcGIS.
The text is intended to assist four categories of readers:
• Professors teaching GIS programming or GIS students learning
with a specific focus on hands-on experience in classroom
settings.
• Programmers wanting to learn GIS programming by scanning
through Section I and Chapters 3 and 4, followed by a step-
by-step study of the remaining chapters.
• GIS system designers most interested in algorithm
descriptions, algorithms implementation from both scratch and
ArcGIS to assemble a practical knowledge about GIS
programing to aid in GIS choice for future development.
• IT professionals with a curiosity of GIS for GIS principles but
skipping the programming exercises.
The intent of the authors for such a broad audience is based on the
desire to cultivate a competitive professional workforce in GIS
development, enhance the literature of GIS, and serve as a practical
introduction to GIS research.

How Did We Develop This Text?

The text material was first developed by Professor Chaowei Yang in
2004 and offered annually in a classroom setting during the past
decade. During that time span, many students developed and
advanced their programming skills. Some became professors and
lecturers in colleges and were invited to write specific book chapters.
Keeping the audience in mind, several professors who teach GIS
programming in different cultural backgrounds and university
settings were invited to review the book chapters.
The following is the book development workflow:

• Using his course materials, Professor Yang structured this book

with Irma Shagla’s help, and the text’s structure was
contracted to be published as a book. Assistant Professor
Qunying Huang, University of Wisconsin, Madison, explored
using the earlier versions of the text’s materials. Assistant
Professors Huang and Zhenlong Li, University of South
Carolina, developed Section II of the text in collaboration with
Professor Yang.
• Dr. Min Sun, Ms. Manzhu Yu, Mr. Yongyao Jiang, and Mr. Jizhe
Xia developed Section III in collaboration with Professor Yang.
• Professor Yang edited and revised all chapters to assure a
common structure and composition.
• Ms. Manzhu Yu and Professor Yang edited the course slides.
• Assistant Professor Li, Mr. Kai Liu, Mrs. Joseph George, and Ms.
Zifu Wang edited Mini-GIS as the software for the text.
• After the above text and course materials were completed,
four professors and two developers were invited to review the
text’s content.
• The assembled materials for the text were finally reviewed by
several professionals, including Ms. Alena Deveau, Mr. Rob
Culbertson, and Professor George Taylor.
• The text was formatted by Ms. Minni Song.
• Ms. Manzhu Yu and Professor Yang completed a final review of
the chapters, slides, codes, data, and all relevant materials.
Acknowledgments

This text is a long-term project evolving from the course

“Introduction to GIS Programming” developed and refined over the
past decade at George Mason University. Many students and
professors provided constructive suggestions about what to include,
how best to communicate and challenge the students, and who
should be considered as audience of the text.
The outcome reflects Professor Yang’s programming career since
his undergraduate theses at China’s Northeastern University under
the mentoring of Professor Jinxing Wang. Professor Yang was further
mentored in programming in the GIS domain by Professors Qi Li and
Jicheng Chen. His academic mentors in the United States, Professors
David Wong and Menas Kafatos, provided support over many
decades, giving him the chance to teach the course that eventually
led to this text.
Professor Yang thanks the brilliant and enthusiastic students in his
classes at George Mason University. Their questions and critiques
honed his teaching skills, improved the content, and prompted this
effort of developing a text.
Professor Yang thanks his beloved wife, Yan Xiang, and children—
Andrew, Christopher, and Hannah—for accommodating him when
stealing valuable family time to complete the text.
Ms. Manzhu Yu extends her gratitude to the many colleagues who
provided support, and read, wrote, commented, and assisted in the
editing, proofreading, and formatting of the text.
Assistant Professor Huang thanks her wonderful husband, Yunfeng
Jiang, and lovely daughter, Alica Jiang.
Dr. Min Sun thanks her PhD supervisor, Professor David Wong, for
educating her. She also thanks David Wynne, her supervisor in ESRI
where she worked as an intern, and her other coworkers who
collectively helped her gain a more complete understanding of
programming with ESRI products. Last but not least, she thanks her
parents and lovely dog who accompanied her when she was writing
the text.
Yongyao Jiang thank his wife Rui Dong, his daughter Laura, and his
parents Lixia Yao and Yanqing Jiang.
Editor

Chaowei Yang is a professor of geographic information science at

George Mason University (GMU). His research interest is on utilizing
spatiotemporal principles to optimize computing infrastructure to
support science discoveries. He founded the Center for Intelligent
Spatial Computing and the NSF Spatiotemporal Innovation Center.
He served as PI or Co-I for projects totaling more than $40 M and
funded by more than 15 agencies, organizations, and companies. He
has published 150+ articles and developed a number of GIS courses
and training programs. He has advised 20+ postdoctoral and PhD
students who serve as professors and scientists in highly acclaimed
U.S. and Chinese institutions. He received many national and
international awards, such as the U.S. Presidential Environment
Protection Stewardship Award in 2009. All his achievements are
based on his practical knowledge of GIS and geospatial information
systems. This book is a collection of such practical knowledge on
how to develop GIS tools from a programming perspective. The
content was offered in his programming and GIS algorithm classes
during the past 10+ years (2004–2016) and has been adopted by
his students and colleagues serving as professors at many
universities in the United States and internationally.
Contributors

Fei Hu is a PhD candidate at the NSF Spatiotemporal Innovation

Center, George Mason University. He is interested in utilizing high-
performance cloud computing technologies to manage and mine big
spatiotemporal data. More specifically, he has optimized the
distributed storage system (e.g., HDFS) and parallel computing
framework (e.g., Spark, MapReduce) to efficiently manage, query,
and analyze big multiple-dimensional array-based datasets (e.g.,
climate data and remote sensing data). He aims to provide scientists
with on-demand data analytical capabilities to relieve them from
time-consuming computational tasks.

Qunying Huang is an assistant professor in the Department of

Geography at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her fields of
expertise include geographic information science (GIScience), cyber
infrastructure, spatiotemporal big data mining, and large-scale
environmental modeling and simulation. She is very interested in
applying different computing models, such as cluster, grid, GPU,
citizen computing, and especially cloud computing, to address
contemporary big data and computing challenges in the GIScience.
Most recently, she is leveraging and mining social media data for
various applications, such as emergency response, disaster
mitigation, and human mobility. She has published more than 50
scientific articles and edited two books.

Yongyao Jiang is a PhD candidate in Earth systems and

geoinformation sciences at the NSF Spatiotemporal Innovation
Center, George Mason University. He earned an MS (2014) in
GIScience at Clark University and a BE (2012) in remote sensing at
Wuhan University. His research focuses on data discovery, data
mining, semantics, and cloud computing. Jiang has received the NSF
EarthCube Visiting Graduate Student Early-Career Scientist Award
(2016), the Microsoft Azure for Research Award (2015), and first
prize in the Robert Raskin CyberGIS Student Competition (2015). He
serves as the technical lead for MUDROD, a semantic discovery and
search engine project funded by NASA’s AIST Program.

Zhenlong Li is an assistant professor in the Department of

Geography at the University of South Carolina. Dr. Li’s research
focuses on spatial high-performance computing, big data
processing/mining, and geospatial cyberinfrastructure in the area of
data and computational intensive GISciences. Dr. Li’s research aims
to optimize spatial computing infrastructure by integrating cutting-
edge computing technologies and spatial principles to support
domain applications such as climate change and hazard
management.

Kai Liu is a graduate student in the Department of Geography and

GeoInformation Sciences (GGS) in the College of Science at George
Mason University. Previously, he was a visiting scholar at the Center
of Intelligent Spatial Computing for Water/Energy Science (CISC)
and worked for 4 years at Heilongjiang Bureau of Surveying and
mapping in China. He earned a BA in geographic information science
at Wuhan University, China. His research focuses on geospatial
semantics, geospatial metadata management, spatiotemporal cloud
computing, and citizen science.

Min Sun is a research assistant professor in the Department of

Geography and Geoinformation Science at George Mason University.
Her research interests include measuring attribute uncertainty in
spatial data, developing visual analytics to support data exploration,
WebGIS, and cloud computing. She is an expert in ArcGIS
programming and also serves as the assistant director for the U.S.
NSF Spatiotemporal Innovation Center.
Jizhe Xia is a research assistant professor at George Mason
University. He earned a PhD in Earth systems and geoinformation
sciences at the George Mason University in the spring of 2015. Dr.
Xia’s research interests are spatiotemporal computing, cloud
computing, and their applications in geographical sciences. He
proposed a variety of methods to utilize spatiotemporal patterns to
optimize big data access, service quality (QoS) evaluation, and cloud
computing application.

Manzhu Yu is a PhD candidate in the Department of Geography

and Geoinformation Science, George Mason University. Her research
interests include spatiotemporal methodology, pattern detection, and
spatiotemporal applications on natural disasters. She received a
Presidential Scholarship from 2012 to 2015. She has published
approximately 10 articles in renowned journals, such as PLoS ONE
and IJGIS, and contributed as a major author in several book
chapters.
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
The linden tree was very popular in Germany as a tavern sign; under
the shadow and in the sweet perfume of the village Linde, old and
young loved to gather to dance and sing. How cozy the inn room
looked at times we may see from his description of the “Crown” in
Lindau. A great bird cage “à loger grand nombre d’oiseaus” was
connected with the woodwork of the comfortable bench that used to
surround the big stove. A look at Dürer’s engraving, “The Dream,”
will help our phantasy to see and feel more clearly the
“Gemütlichkeit” of such a stove-corner. Leaning back in soft
cushions, a philistine in dressing-gown is peacefully dozing, while a
beautiful young woman standing at his side seems to reveal a part
of his dream.
The most luxurious hotel Montaigne ever stopped at was one in
Rome, nobly called “Au Vase d’Or.” “As in the palace of kings,” the
furniture was covered with silk and golden brocades. But he did not
feel at home in his royal room, constantly fearing to injure the costly
things, and to get a great bill against him for damages. So he
decided to move to more modest quarters, not without dictating to
his secretary: “M. de Montaigne estima que cette magnificence estoit
non-sulement inutile, mais encore pénible pour la conservation de
ces meubles, chaque lict estant du pris de quatre ou cinq çans
escus.” Most of the Italian inns of his time stood in curious contrast
to this royal sumptuosity. Often the windows were mere holes in the
walls, simply closed with wooden shutters, which darkened the room
completely if one needed to be protected against sun, wind, or rain.
Such was the case of the “Crown” in Siena: “Nous lojames à la
Couronne, assés bien, mais toujours sans vitres et sans chassis. Ces
fenêtres grandes et toute ouvertes, sauf un grand contrevent de
bois, qui vous chasse le jour, si vous en voulez chasser le soleil ou le
vent; ce qu’il trouvoit bien plus insupportable et irremédiable que la
faute des rideaux d’Allemaigne.” This lack of curtains in German
hostelries was still, two hundred and fifty years later, for Victor Hugo
a reason to complain about the “indigence des rideaux.” A real
miserable time Monsieur de Montaigne had in Florence in the
“hostellerie de l’ange,” where certain little creatures drive him out of
bed and force him to sleep on the table: “J’etois forcé la nuit de
dormir sur la table de la salle ou je faisais mettre des matelas et des
draps ... pour éviter les punaises dont tous les lits sont fort infectés.”
A similar experience he has in San Lorenzo, near Viterbo, the
charming little town of countless fountains.
But we must take leave of our noble traveling companion and visit
the painters’ studios of the time to see if we cannot find in their
work pictures of the taverns and signs we have heard so much
about.
·THE·ROWING·BARGE·WALLINGFORD·
 The Trumpeter before a Tavern
From a Painting by Du Jardin in Amsterdam
 CHAPTER VI
TAVERN SIGNS IN ART—ESPECIALLY IN
PICTURES BY THE DUTCH MASTERS

“Als de vien es in der man

dan is de wiesheid in de kan.”

Carlyle once complained that the artists preferred to paint

“Corregiosities,” creations of their own fancy, instead of representing
the historic events of their own times. Only the Dutch painters of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in so far as they keep clear of
the Italian influence, may justly be called true historical painters,
certainly with greater reason than the school of historical painting in
the nineteenth century, which tried to reconstruct events of epochs
long past with the antiquarian help of old armor, swords, costumes,
and the like. We will find, therefore, in the works of the Dutch
masters the truest historical documents for our modest sphere of
investigation.
While Greek art reflected, as in a pure mirror, the harmony of
worldly and religious life in Hellas, the mediæval art essentially
served religious ideas, but in giving them a visible form used the
worldly elements of contemporary costume and architecture. Great
artists like Giotto, whose merits the proud words on his tombstone
characterize, “Ille ego sum per quem pinctura extincta revixit,”
proved themselves the best historians, because they possessed,
besides deep religious concentration, the gift of true observation,
thus introducing in their works valuable information about the life of
their own time.
Not until the dawn of the Renaissance had freed the worldly spirit
from ecclesiastical shackles did men imbued with a deep-rooted love
of their country, like the Venetian Vittore Carpaccio, or the Florentine
Benozzo Gozzoli, give us true pictures of home life. Out of the
solemn walls of churches and cloisters they lead us into the
animated and picturesque life of the streets, which were not, as
some authors try to make us believe, above all the scene of wild and
unbridled passions, but which we might compare with arteries filled
with the red and healthy blood of social life. In his frescoes from the
life of St. Augustine in San Gimignano, Benozzo shows us how
parents present their little boy to the “magistro grammatice” in the
street in front of the open schoolroom. Little Augustine, crossing his
arms over his breast in an attitude of deference, looks rather
inquisitively at his future master, while in the parents’ faces we read
the earnest hope that the son will make “ultra modum” great
progress, and never deserve such shameful public punishment as we
see administered to the little good-for-nothing on the right side of
the picture. But we do not observe a schoolmaster sign hung out,
such as have come down to us from the German sixteenth century.
The Italian painter still delights, above all, in the architectural beauty
of his native city. In the same way Carpaccio shows us the piazzas
and canals of his beloved Venice in the splendor of processions,
solemn receptions of foreign ambassadors, and the like, decorated
with flags and Oriental carpets. The humble inn of the people does
not yet attract the eye of the artist, who delights in the elegance of
palaces and the grandeur of public buildings.
The early artists of the Netherlands, too, represent the street, not
filled with the noisy, everyday life of the people, but as a quiet stage,
on which the holy procession of saints solemnly move, as in
Memling’s picture of St. Ursula’s arrival in Rome. In quiet, elegant
rooms the noble donors kneel before the holy virgin, saints unite in a
“santa conversazione,” far from the world. Here and there only a
window looks out on a tiny landscape, with rivers and bridges,
roads, and fortified towns on distant hills, beyond which our
“Wanderlust” draws us. This little section of nature slowly grows
larger, the narrow limitations of architecture fall; crowned only with
the glorious light of heaven, Mary sits in the open green fields,
which give good pasture to the tired donkey. Thus Jan van Scorel
has painted the holy family in a charming picture of the collection
Rath in Pest. Out of pious seclusion the way leads into free nature,
to meadows and brooks, to clattering mills, and finally, for a rest
after the long walk, to the peasant’s inn.
Even earlier, before the Dutch painters, a pupil of Dürer, Hans Sebald
Beham, one of the “godless painters of Nuremberg,” who were
exiled from their native town on account of socialistic tendencies,
has taken us along this road. In one of his larger engravings he
pictures the different stages of a rustic wedding, and for the first
time shows us the signboard, hanging on a long stick, from a dormer
window of the tavern. We might date the painted sign from the
invention of oil painting on wooden panels by the brothers Van Eyck,
an art which was introduced in Italy through Antonello da Messina
as late as 1473. The signs of earlier date we have to imagine as
either sculptures, closely united with the architecture of the house,
or as mural paintings such as we still see to-day in Stein-on-the-
Rhine, for instance, on the house “Zum Ochsen.”
Master Dürer himself once hung out the little tablet with his famous
monogram as a tavern sign over the fantastic ruin, in which he
places the birth of Christ in his beautiful engraving of the year 1504,
proud to have prepared such a cozy inn for Our Lady and her God-
given Child.
But the whole wealth of signs, from the natural simple form of the
speaking sign to the most elaborate examples of signs painted or
artfully wrought in iron, reveals itself to us later in the realistic
pictures of the Dutch painters.
The earliest representation of a speaking sign, where the
merchandise itself is still hung out, I have seen in a woodcut
illustrating a book printed in Augsburg in 1536: “Hie hebt an das
Concilium zu Constanz.”
It is a baker’s sign: large “brezels” on a wooden stick, a primitive
precursor of the artful baker’s sign we observe in Jan Steen’s
charming picture “The baker Arent Oostwaard” in the Rijks Museum
at Amsterdam. In more modern times the real merchandise is
sometimes supplanted by an imitation of the different loafs in wood
and neatly painted in natural colors, such as we see in an amusing
sign from Borgo San Dalmazzo, a picturesque mountain town near
Cuneo in northern Italy.
A similar evolution may be noted in other trade signs: first the real
boots, and later a copy in wood, painted red if possible; first the big
pitcher and the shining tin tankard decorated with fresh foliage, later
the imitation in a wreath of iron leaves. Everywhere in the tavern
and kermess scenes painted by Dutch masters, we see real pitchers
and tankards hanging over the doors as speaking signs inviting the
peasants to enter and partake of a refreshing drink. In northern
Germany the “Krug” (pitcher) was so popular as a sign that the
landlord was called after it, “Krüger,” to this day a widely spread
family name.

Panetteria Borgo San Dalmazzo·

Unfortunately the Dutch artists loved the interior of the tavern still
better than its façade, otherwise we should find still more of the old
signs in their pictures. Jan Steen, a genius in the art of living as well
as in the art of painting, was a brewer’s son and occasionally he
played the landlord himself, in 1654, in the tavern “Zur Schlange,”
and in 1656 “In der Roskam,” both in Delft. In his latter days, when
he had returned to his birthplace, Leyden, where he once was
enrolled as a student of the university, he obtained a license from
the city fathers “de neringh van openbare herbergh.” Who could
deny æsthetic influence to tavern rooms bedecked with genuine
Steens? Other artists like Brouwer paid their tavern debts in pictures,
and thus created an artistic atmosphere in which young artists like
Steen himself felt most naturally at ease.
In a picture in Brussels, “The Assembly of the Rhetoricians,” the
president of a debating society reads the prize poem to the
peasantry assembled outside a tavern, the speaking sign of which,
pitcher and tankard, is hanging out on a large oaken branch. More
frequent than this bush is the wreath—known to us already as a sign
in antiquity—surrounding the jolly pitcher as we see it in Du Jardin’s
sunny picture “The Trumpeter before a Tavern,” in Amsterdam.
David Teniers gives the preference to the half moon and rarely omits
to place a pitcher above the signboard. Sometimes he decorates his
moon tavern with the escutcheon of Austria and the imperial eagle;
for instance, in a picture in Vienna. In his great painting in the
Louvre we see a mail-stage-driver’s horn, a kind of hunting-horn,
although the master, who died in 1690, did not live to see the mail-
coach introduced.
 The Half-Moon
from a painting by Teniers in London

In the representations, then so popular, of corporations assembled at

festive meals, we sometimes remark in the background, through an
open window, the stately guild-houses crowned with their signs; the
little lamb with the flag, for instance, in Bartholomæus van der
Helst’s superb banquet of the city guard in the Rijks Museum at
Amsterdam. But perhaps no other artist has given us a more vivid
impression of the beauty of the street with its various glittering signs
than the brothers Berkheyden in the picture of which we reproduce
a section in our Frontispiece. The street itself has been the painter’s
real object, the play of light and shade on its various architectural
features fascinates him more than the people passing through it,
who once acted the principal rôle and are now treated as mere
accessories valuable for accenting the perspective of the picture.
Gerrit Berkheyden has painted the same market-place of Harlem
again in his sunny picture of 1674 in the London National Gallery,
but this time the street, gayly decorated with signs, is more distant
and lost in shadow.
Fifty years later Hogarth gave us a picture of London streets and
their fantastic signs, but not in the Dutch spirit of naïve truthfulness.
There is hardly an engraving among his numerous productions
representing a street scene, without a tavern sign. All forms are
represented, the detached signpost characteristic of England, such
as the “Adam and Eve” sign on the large engraving “The March to
Finchley,” or the sign of “The Sun” hung out on a bracket in his
engraving of “The Day,” dated 1738; again, a painted board,
fastened against the wall, as we see it over the door of the Bell
Tavern, in one of his earliest prints dated 1731 in the cycle “A
Harlot’s Progress.” In the same plate we notice over another tavern
door a large chessboard, familiar to us from the old Roman taverns.
Usually this cubistic pattern decorates the signpost standing in front
of the alehouse, as seen in our design of the sign-painter from the
engraving “The Day.” Hogarth’s sarcastic mind was inclined anyway
to distort life’s pictures like a comic mirror, and it will be difficult to
determine how much further he has caricatured the actual signs he
saw in the streets of London which, themselves, were very often the
creations of a cartoonist. Most of his signs seem true copies from
life; others, like the barber sign in the engraving “The Night,” or the
above-mentioned “Good Eating,” I am inclined to think exaggerations
or fanciful inventions, although, to be sure, the carved frame around
the gruesome pitcher of St. John the Baptist’s head shows a distinct
historic style, somewhat plainer and of more recent date than the
richly carved Renaissance frame of the Adam and Eve signboard.
While to Hogarth the sign seemed to be an excellent medium
wherewith to increase the bitterness of his satire, the German
romantic artists of the nineteenth century, Moritz von Schwind and
Spitzweg, loved to introduce it in their pictures as a fairy element.
The golden pattern of a star sign is woven into the soft lines of their
compositions: “The Farewell,” by Spitzweg, and the famous
“Wedding Journey,” by Schwind, in the Schack Gallery at Munich. A
friendly star is twinkling over both the lovers who part with tears,
and those who are starting upon their journey in the dewy morning
of life.
A Sign-Painter from an Engraving by Hogarth
 CHAPTER VII
ARTISTS AS SIGN-PAINTERS

“Ou il n’y a pas d’église je regarde les enseignes.”

Victor Hugo.

Good old Diderot, who to-day sits so peacefully in his armchair of

bronze on the Boulevard Saint-Germain and observes with
philosophical calm the restless stream of Parisian life passing him by
day and night, was once a severe critic. We might call him the father
of critics, since he reviewed the first French Art Exhibition arranged
in the Salon carré of the Louvre. From this salon the modern French
Expositions in Paris derive their name, although they have grown
into bewildering labyrinths of art and have long ago lost the intimacy
and elegance inherent in a salon. When Diderot intended to hurt the
feelings of an exhibiting artist, he used to call him a “peintre
d’enseigne,” and he was cruel enough to use this term rather
frequently with those painters “qui ne se servent de la brosse que
pour salir la toile.” In the famous encyclopædia which, together with
d’Alembert, he edited in 1779, and which brought them the honorary
title of “Encyclopédistes,” he gives two definitions of the French word
for sign, “enseigne”: first, a flag; and second, condescendingly,
“petit tableau pendu à une boutique.” As we see, the great critic did
not appreciate sign-painters and their works very highly; and in this
respect he only shared the general opinion of the public, which liked
to poke fun at these “artistes en plein vent.”
Charlet, who usually celebrates in his lithographs the soldiers of the
great Napoleon, is the author of an amusing cartoon on our poor
sign-painters. “J’aime la couleur” is the title of the spirituel design
which leaves us in doubt which color the sign-artist really prefers—
the red on his large palette or the red of the wine in the glass he is
holding.
In similar vein Hogarth represents him as a poor devil in rags and as
a conceited fellow evidently very proud of his mediocre work. Like
his French colleague he loves a drink in this cold, windy business of
his; at least the round bottle hanging on the frame of the signboard
contains to our mind, not varnish, but something in the Scotch
whiskey line.
To the “Musée de la rue” his immortal works were dedicated, said a
malicious Frenchman; but after all, was this really so degrading at a
time when excellent artists did not hesitate to exhibit their work in
the open street? Monsieur Georges Cain, the director of the
Carnavalet Museum, who knows all the “Coins de Paris” so well and
with whom it is so entertaining to promenade “à travers Paris,” tells
us that in the days before the Revolution the young artists who were
not yet members of the official academies used to show their
paintings on the Place Dauphine, once situated behind the Palais de
Justice. If Jupiter Pluvius did not interfere, the exhibition was
arranged on the day of the “petite Fête-Dieu.” Great linen sheets
were pinned over the shop-windows and formed the background for
paintings of such eminent artists as Oudry, Boucher, Nattier, or
Chardin, works of art which to-day are considered treasures of the
Louvre, as “La Raie,” exhibited by Chardin for the first time in 1728
in this museum of the street. “Quel joli spectacle,” says Cain in his
“Coins de Paris,” “devaient offrir la place Dauphine, les façades roses
des deux maisons d’angle et le vieux Pont-Neuf—décor exquis,
pittoresque et charmeur—encombrés d’amateurs, de badauds, de
critiques, de belles dames, d’artistes, d’aimables modèles en claire
toilette, se pressant affairés, babillards, enthousiastes, joyeux, par
une douce matinée de mai, devant les toiles fraîches écloses des
Petits Exposants de la Place Dauphine!”
Our respect for the “artistes en plein vent” can but increase, when
we hear that three famous painters have begun their career with the
composition of a sign: Holbein, Prud’hon, and Chardin. All kinds of
tavern anecdotes are in circulation regarding Holbein, who was
rather a gay bird in his youth. According to one of them he once got
so tired of painting the decoration of a tavern room that he
concluded to deceive the landlord, watching eagerly his work, by
counterfeiting himself standing on a scaffold before the wall busily
engaged in his work. Thus he was able to skip out and have a good
time in another tavern, while the good landlord, every time he
looked through the door, was pleased to see him ever diligently
working. One of Holbein’s earliest works was a sign for a pedagogue
representing a schoolroom; this is still preserved in the Museum at
Basle.
Who would have thought that Prud’hon—the artist who dwelled in
romantic dreams, and whose wonderful creation of Psyche, borne
away by loving wind-gods, lives on, a pleasant fancy in our minds—
had begun his artistic career by painting a sign for a hatter in his
native town? This, we suppose, was the first and last time that he
painted such an unpoetical thing as a hat. Like Holbein he was just
fourteen years old at the time when he produced this picture, which
likewise has come down to us; at least it still existed when the École
des Beaux-Arts in Paris arranged a Prud’hon Exhibition in 1874.
The third great artist who gained his first success by means of a sign
was Chardin. A friend of his father, a surgeon, who did not disdain to
play the barber as a side issue had given him the order. It was not
unusual for doctors to hang out a pretty sign; if they were poetically
inclined, they ventured a little rhyme on it, as shown by this Dutch
example:—

“Den Chirurgijn
Vermindert de pijn
Door Gods Genade.”

For this respect the barber and hair-dressing artists showed no less
talent, as this French verse will sufficiently prove:—

“La Nature donne barbe et cheveux

 Et moi, je les coupe tous les deux.”

Well, our “chirurgien-barbier” followed the general custom of his

time and ordered a sign. Naturally he expected Chardin to paint on it
all his knives, his trepan, and other instruments of torture, and was
not a little surprised to find something very different. The
proportions of the signboard, which was very long, twelve feet long
by three feet high, had suggested to the young artist an animated
composition which he styled “les suites d’un duel dans la rue” and
for which all the members of his family had been obliged to pose as
models. Only one part of the picture, where the wounded was
carried to a surgeon’s office, referred to the business of his father’s
friend. Fearing, therefore, a possible objection on his part, the artist
took the precaution to fasten the sign in the night to the doctor’s
house, who was awakened in the morning by a big crowd assembled
before it, evidently admiring the chef d’œuvre. Unfortunately this
early work of Chardin’s no longer exists. His paintings, so much
more serious and solid than the frivolities of Boucher and Lancret,
the idols of the public of his time, have only recently, in our
democratic times, received fully the appreciation they deserve.
But the most famous of signs painted by a great artist is without
doubt the one which Watteau, in 1720, shortly before his death,
made for the art dealer Gersaint, in three days, “to limber up his stiff
old fingers.” It is one of the most beautiful things Watteau ever
produced and is now in the possession of the German Kaiser. French
critics, however, think that it was executed by a pupil, from the
original sketch of the master, which has been found and which
shows more “loose qualities,” to use an artist’s term. However that
may be, the picture that Frederic the Great purchased through his
art agent in Paris is a beauty. A good friend of Watteau’s, a Monsieur
de Julienne, the first possessor of the sign, and owner of another
painted by Watteau for Gersaint’s art shop, entitled “Vertumnus and
Pomona,” was very proud of this new possession, as we might judge
from the fact that he asked the engraver Aveline to engrave it with
this inscription:—
“Watteau, dans cette enseigne à la fleur de ses ans
Des Maîstres de son art imite la manière;
Leurs caractères différens,
Leurs touches et leur goût composent la matière
De ces esquisses élégans.”

These words refer to a picture gallery in Gersaint’s shop which

Watteau carefully reproduces in the sign, but which to our modern
eyes is less fascinating than the elegant customers, ladies and
gentlemen, and the amusing eagerness and enthusiasm of these
aristocratic connoisseurs.
Another sign by Watteau, the loss of which we have to deplore, was
the property of a “marchande de modes.” No doubt it tempted many
a “Parisienne” to buy rather more of the charming Watteau costumes
than were strictly necessary.
A modern French artist who sometimes has been honored with the
name “Watteau Montmartrois,” the illustrator Willette, has produced
in our days the sign for the famous cabaret, the “Chat Noir”
prototype of all cabarets in France and elsewhere. Two other signs
by his master-hand, “À l’image de Notre Dame” and “À Bonaparte,”
may still be seen in Paris on the Quai Voltaire and on the corner of
the Rue Bonaparte and the Rue de l’Abbaie.
Other great French artists have painted signs occasionally: Greuze
did the “Enseigne du Huron” for a tobacco merchant—which may
remind us of the wooden Indian, guarding similar American shops in
the old days; Carle Vernet and his son Horace Vernet; Géricault, the
great sportsman, whose career as an artist was cut short by a
violent fall from a horse, is the author of the “Cheval blanc,” which
once adorned a tavern in the neighborhood of Paris; Gavarni, the
great lithographer, painted a sign, “Aux deux Pierrots,” and drew it
later on stone; Carolus Duran’s “enseigne brossée vigoureusement
sur une plaque légèrement courbée” was first exhibited in the Salon
de la Société Nationale before it was placed over the door of a
fencing-school; and many others.
Among the French sculptors Jean Goujon, perhaps the greatest of
them, the creator of the Fontaine des Innocents in Paris and its
charmingly graceful figures, is mentioned as the author of a sign,
“La chaste Suzanne,” which once embellished a house in the Rue aux
Fêves. To-day a plaster cast has been substituted for the original,
bought by an art collector. In the old streets of Paris we may still
discover here and there sculptured signs of artistic charm, such as
“La Fontaine de Jouvence” in the Rue de Four Saint-Germain, 67,
and the fine relief of the “Soleil d’or” in the Rue Saint-Sauveur. The
little Bacchus riding so gayly on a cask, who once decorated the
“Cabaret du Lapin blanc,” spends to-day a rather dull existence,
together with other retired colleagues of his, in the Musée
Carnavalet. Our little “Rémouleur,” from the Rue des Nonains
d’Hyères, who does not fail to amply moisten his grindstone, is not
only a suggestive symbol, but in his dainty rococo dress a very
amusing piece of sculpture.
We cannot end our chat on signs by French artists without
mentioning the name of Victor Hugo, to whom we owe so much
information about the wealth of signs that still existed at his time in
France and the countries bordering on the Rhine. He was himself a
clever draughtsman and occasionally sketched “des dessins aux
enseignes enchevêtrées,” reminiscences of the real signs he used to
admire on his wanderings. The following quotation may show how
great was his love for signs: “À Rhinfelden, les exubérantes
enseignes d’auberge m’ont occupé comme des cathédrales; et j’ai
l’esprit fait ainsi, qu’ à de certains moments un étang de village, clair
comme un miroir d’acier, entouré de chaumières et traversé par une
flotille de canards me régale autant que le lac de Genève.”
 Enseigne du Rémouleur·Paris

Among the great Dutch masters Paulus Potter, Albert Cuyp, and
Wouwerman are cited as occasional sign-painters. Even Potter’s
famous “Jonge Stier” in The Hague is claimed as a butcher’s sign. It
would perhaps seem like doing too much honor to the art of sign-
painting if we numbered this remarkable work of the twenty-two-
year-old artist among them. And what beautiful white horses, bathed
in mellow sunlight, Cuyp may have painted for the “Rössle” taverns!
Another Dutch artist, Laurens van der Vinne (1629-1702), is even
called the Raphael among sign-painters. We do not know much
about his work, but I am afraid he did not take this title as a
compliment.
To find Rembrandt’s great name in connection with our art seems
stranger still, but there is a tradition that copies of his pictures—we
may think of his good Samaritan arriving with the wounded man
before an inn—were used as signs. As we shall see later, his own
portrait was occasionally hung out by a patriotic and art-loving
landlord over the tavern door.
Among English artists Hogarth, whom we already know as a keen
observer of London signs, deserves the first place. He is supposed to
be the author of a sign, not very gallant to the fair sex, called “A
man loaded with mischief.” It represents a wife-ridden man. All kinds
of delicate allusions hidden in the background of the composition
seem to hint at the sad fact that this impudent woman on his back
holding a glass of gin gets sometimes “drunk as a sow.” I doubt if
Hogarth engraved this plate himself; it is signed “Sorrow” as the
engraver and “Experience” as the designer. It would do little honor
either to Hogarth the man or the artist.
All satirical art has this great deficiency, that it is hard for the public
to judge whether the satire means to combat seriously the vices and
errors of men or whether the smile of the satirist is not a smile of
complacency. But such doubts must not detain us from visiting with
good humor an exhibition of signs, the spiritual promoter of which
Hogarth seems to have been. At any rate, he contributed quite a few
of his own works under the transparent pseudonym “Hagarty.”
Bonnell Thornton, who, after a brilliant journalistic career as editor
of “The Connoisseur,” “The St. James’s Chronicle,” and other
publications, received the greatest honor accorded to Englishmen, a
final abode in Westminster Abbey, was the originator of this curious
exhibition. Hogarth was at least on the “hanging committee.” The
fact that the gates of the Signboard Exhibition were opened in the
spring of 1762, at the same time as the official Exhibition of the
Society for the Encouragement of Arts, provoked the anger of the
“Brother Artists” and was the signal for a perfect storm among the
newspapers. Furious articles stigmatized the enterprise as “the most
impudent and pickpocket Abuse that I ever knew offered to the
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