SOCKS

An online magazine of Art, Architecture, Media, Culture, Sounds, Territories, Technology)

  • Media
  • Art
  • Architecture
  • Culture
  • Sounds
  • Territories
  • Visual Atlas

A Portrait of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s Kosmos (1845-62)

April 17, 2017 by Fosco Lucarelli Leave a Comment

Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) was a German geographer, explorer and naturalist who traveled extensively to Latin America and put the basis for a modern scientific description of the world. His research was published in a large series of volumes over 21 years. Fosterer of a holistic vision of the universe, Von Humboldt unified diverse branches of scientific knowledge and culture by collecting his research in a series of five volumes under the name of Kosmos, (1845–62), a publication extensively translated all over the world.

The writing was based on a series of lectures that Von Humboldt gave at the University of Berlin. The first volume conveys a “portrait of nature”, the second a general history of science. The theoretical framework was based on the view of the orderliness of the cosmos, directly borrowed from ancient Greek philosophy, by which the laws of the Universe apply also on the apparent chaos of the Earth. The general harmony of the cosmos offers to the person who contemplates it, personal inspiration and a beneficial awareness about life.

The writing was based on a series of lectures that Von Humboldt gave at the University of Berlin. The first volume conveys a “portrait of nature”, the second a general history of science. The theoretical framework was based on the view of the orderliness of the cosmos, directly borrowed from ancient Greek philosophy, by which the laws of the Universe apply also on the apparent chaos of the Earth. To the person who contemplates it, the general harmony of the cosmos offers personal inspiration and a beneficial awareness about life.

The following images are the illustrations from the pirated version of Kosmos by Traott Bromme under the title “Atlas zu Alexander von Humboldt’s Kosmos” (Stuttgart 1861).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Related:

Andrea Wulf, The Invention of Nature

Humboldt Books, a wonderful Italian publishing house focusing on travel literature that draws inspiration from scientific explorations of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Related Posts

  • Herbert Bayer's Small Architectural Projects (1924)

    Herbert Bayer was a prolific graphic designer and typography designer who also worked as a…

  • Tim Mara's Prints Narrative

    Despite his focus on ordinary scenes and everyday objects, Irish artist Tim Mara (1948-1997) always…

  • A Perfect Grid: the Roman Town of Timgad, the African Pompeii

    The city of Timgad, in today's Algeria, was founded as a military settlement by Emperor…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Tumblr

Socks is a non-linear journey through distant territories of human imagination.

About | Visual Atlas | Topics

We are Mariabruna Fabrizi and Fosco Lucarelli from Microcities. Ask us anything

  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Tumblr


SOCKS is a project by Fosco Lucarelli and Mariabruna Fabrizi of MICROCITIES, Architecture Cityscape, Landscape.
Except where otherwise noted, the content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license.
Whenever possible we try to attribute content (images, videos, and quotes) to their creators and original sources. Please feel free to write us if you notice misattributions or wish something to be removed.
SOCKS is powered by WordPress.