Humboldt and an Aesthetic Tradition in Geography

Abstract

HE year 1859 is particularly significant in the history of attitudes toward the environment. Alexander von Humboldt died. Charles Darwin published his Origin of Species. Frederick E. Church exhibited his painting, Heart of the Andes, first in New York and then in London. In his lifetime Humboldt, through his explorations and scientific writings, stood in fame next to Napoleon. Humboldt had been a universal genius. Ralph Waldo Emerson described Humboldt as one of the wonders of the world, like Aristotle, like Julius Caesar. . .who appear from time to time, as if to show us the possibilities of the human mind-a universal man .. .1 Humboldt was indeed a universal man-perhaps even the culmination of the Renaissance man envisioned by Pico della Mirandola in 1486: a man put amidst the world so that from there [he could] better perceive all that is in the world.2 During a lifetime of ninety years Humboldt did precisely what Pico della Mirandola specified. At a time when the scientific world was beginning to move from the unified spirit of the Renaissance to specialization in the various disciplines that exist today and to value scientific work in terms of its practical applications, Humboldt, guided by his curiosity, tried to grasp the world as a whole-to involve the entire cosmos in his thinking. The idea of unity in the diversity of nature was a central theme of Humboldt's writings, as was the unity of art and science. Although his work was widely read before 1859, especially in the Americas, the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species quickly overshadowed Humboldt's rich labors. Darwin's idea of evolution and his vision of nature as a battleground supplanted the relatively static, peaceable, and noble kingdom of nature that Humboldt had