Heinrich C. Berann's Stunning Map Artwork

The father of the modern panorama map

Heinrich Berann (1915-1999) is the father of the modern panorama map. Berann was known for his unorthodox habits of landscape manipulation, such as rotating mountains, widening valleys, and vertically exaggerating features. Berann painted four panoramas for the U.S. National Park Service that demonstrated his genius for landscape visualization: North Cascades National Park (1987), Yellowstone National Park, Yosemite National Park, and finally Mt. McKinley National Park (1994). Some of his map artwork is now in the public domain and can be found via the links at the bottom of this page.

Some examples of Berann's "National Park caricatures"

I made posters of the four National Park paintings Berann made for the U.S. National Park Service. These peices are some of my favorites of Berann's stunning map masterpieces:






And I made a labeled poster of the North Cascades using Berann's illustration.

A short introduction to his life

(The following biography was written by Matthias Troyer, a grandson of H.C. Berann. It can be found on the website The World of H.C. Berann, a really nice site which Matthias has created that details the life and works of his grandfather.)

Prof. H.C. Berann, the father of the modern panorama map, is renowned throughout the world for his combining old European painting tradition with modern cartography to produce his unique panorama maps.

He was born into a family of established painters and sculptors on March 31st, 1915 in Innsbruck, Tyrol. Nevertheless his artistic efforts were initially not supported by his father and he taught himself by trial and error. In the years 1930-1933 he attended the arts and design school "Bundeslehranstalt für Malerei" in Innsbruck.

The great recession of the thirties did not allow him to make a living as a painter and he had to work as an independent artist and designer. His future career was decided by his winning the first prize at a competition for a panorama map of the newly opened "Großglockner Hochalpenstraße" mountain pass road in Austria in 1934. Using his artistic heritage and new self-discovered techniques he invented a new way of painting landscapes for touristic purposes. In the following years he improved this technique, created the modern panorama map and became famous all over the world for his maps that are in a class of their own.

The further development of both these panorama maps and his artistic style was influenced by lasting impressions he received during his military service in Norway and Northern Finland in 1942. The most prominent example are his trademark cloud formations. Another deep influence was the marriage to Ludmilla Herold in 1941 and the birth of his daughters Elisabeth and Angela.

In 1944 he had the opportunity for anatomical studies with Dr. Wirtingen in Vienna and to learn from the sculptor Prof. Gustinus Ambrosi. After the war he could also devlop his artistic side as a painter thanks to the generous support of Prof. Paul Schwarzkopf.

All his life has been split between his passion, the art, and his profession as a cartographer, as is symbolized by his sign, the balance. Since 1952 he lived in his house in the mountain village of Lans near Innsbruck, Austria. There he died at the age of 84 years on December 4th, 1999.

External Links

The World of H.C.Berann
shadedrelief.com
Wikipedia

Images

View Heinrich C. Berann's Stunning Map Artwork Image Gallery - 7 Images