Humboldt’s Views between Art and Science Science, Imagination & the Illustration of Knowledge - 4th International Illustration Symposium MNH- University of Oxford Oxford, United Kingdom (2013 November 8) INTRODUCTION Alexander von Humboldt travelled through the Americas showing a new way of depicting the tropical nature, offering Europe a picture of the New World that had never been seen before. This German explorer believed in science which needed art to feel the nature, in order to fully understand what was being observed, and in that way he showed the American landscapes to Europe. Therefore, Alexander von Humboldt appeared as the synthesizer of the strictest analytical view common to natural scientists and the artistic view of the painter, whose soul is touched by the sublime spectacle of nature. ¿How Humboldt converts data into a picture of nature? • Artistic formation during his youth • Contact with academic artists during his travels in Europe • He is an exceptional theorist but he needs to recruit artists for the final work Humboldt and British Artists In 1790, Humboldt and Georg Forster departed from Göttingen to Düsseldorf and from there, through Brabant and Flanders, to England. True to this spirit which also would accompany him in his later trips, Humboldt interacted with various personalities and he also had a remarkable encounter with British painting in London: “If I might be permitted to instance my own experience, and recall to mind the source from whence sprang my early and fixed desire to visit the land of the tropics, I should name George Forster's Delineations of the South Sea Islands, the pictures of Hodges, which represented the shores of the Ganges, and which I first saw at the house of Warren Hastings, in London... “ HUMBOLDT: Cosmos. 1849: 372 Humboldt also had knowledge of other British painters like Thomas Daniell and his work Oriental Scenery : “I have felt how difficult it is to give the former that vigorous tone of coloring, which we admire in the Oriental Scenery of Mr. Daniel.” HUMBOLDT: Views of the Cordilleras, 1814:9 The final artwork He contacted with other artists in Rome, Berlin and Paris: “The Views of the Cordilleras consist of one large Volume in Folio ornamented with Sixty- nine Plates engraved by the first Artists of Berlin, Rome, and Paris.” HUMBOLDT: Views of the Cordilleras, 1814:9 Elisa Garrido (Instituto de Historia - CSIC, Madrid) elisa.garrido@cchs.csic.es Art and Science in the Enlightenment In 1735, Linnaeus published Systema Naturae and naturalist iconography reached a level of detail never seen before, being expressed in botanical and zoological drawings, which became tools of knowledge. At the same time, it was a historic moment for the History of Art, when aesthetic categories such as the picturesque and the sublime will began to be theorized and discussed. Humboldtian Landscape As the concept Humboldtian Science is generally accepted to understand the extensive scientific work of Alexander von Humboldt, the Humboldtian Landscape should be equally assumed by Art Historians. Since Humboldt was also an art theorist but his value in arts needs to be more recognized. The value of Art for Science: “Quelles que soient la richesse et la flexibilité d’une langue, ce n’est pas néanmoins une enterprise sans difficultés que celle de décrire avec des mots ce que l’art du peintre est seul apte à représenter ” (Notwithstanding the richness and adaptability of our language, the attempt to designate in words, that which, in fact, appertains only to the representational art of the painter, is always fraught with difficulty) HUMBOLDT: Tableaux de la Nature. 1865,p. 354. CONCLUSIONS • Humboldtian landscape as a result of his contacts with artists in Europe before and after his American expedition • Humboldt inspiration in the Oriental landscape painting for depicting the Tropical nature • Humboldt’s final artwork as the best representation of the links between Art and Science Acknowledgements Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) Latin American Expedition (1799-1804)