Visualisierungen in der deutschen Geographie des 19. Jahrhunderts. Die Beispiele Robert Schlagintweit und Hans Meyer

Abstract

Visualization in 19th-century German geography: Robert Schlagintweit and Hans Meyer as examples. – Visual representations of nature formed an essential part of 19th-century earth sciences. In particular, colonial photography – as a visual source, and as an instrument of the construction of national identities – serves essential research interests of current history and social sciences. The present paper is a case study on the role and function of photography in German geography of the 19th and early 20th centuries. It focuses on the work of the Munich geographer Robert Schlagintweit (1833–1885) and the Leipzig colonial geographer Hans Meyer (1858–1929); the early history of photography in India and the function of images in the geographical exploration of overseas territories are discussed. Although there is nearly half a century between the work of R. Schlagintweit and H. Meyer, their photography shows remarkable parallels. The ideas of both on the practice of visualization are rooted in pedagogic and didactic concepts as well as in popular science. For both geographers photography was essentially a technical help, which often needed graphic revisions. And they both preferred photography to depict people and buildings (compared, for instance, to landscapes). Concerning the more comprehensive question of how far their photography transmitted a specific German ‘image of abroad’, it is indicated that such a specific image should have its essential roots in a peculiar visual culture of German earth sciences in the first half of the 19th century. Thus the paper offers a starting point for further studies discussing the change from a ‘Biedermeier image’ of foreign cultures to a more ‘colonial’ one in 19th-century German geography.