The Invention of Nature

Chimborazo in today’s Ecuador was believed to be the highest mountain in the world when Humboldt climbed the volcano in 1802. Chimborazo inspired Simón Bolívar to write a poem about the liberation of the Spanish colonies in Latin America. (Illustration Credit ins.1)

Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland collecting plants at the foot of Chimborazo

Humboldt talking to one of the indigenous people in Turbaco (today’s Colombia) en route to Bogotá (Illustration Credit ins.3)

Humboldt and his small team at Cayambe volcano near Quito

This painting of Humboldt and Bonpland in a jungle hut was completed in 1856, more than fifty years after their expedition. Humboldt didn’t like it because the instruments depicted were inaccurate. (Illustration Credit ins.5)

Thomas Jefferson in 1805, just after he had met Humboldt in Washington, DC. Unlike the more stately portraits of George Washington, Jefferson is purposefully ‘rustic’ to convey an image of simplicity. (Illustration Credit ins.6)

Humboldt’s spectacular three-foot by two-foot Naturgemälde which was part of his Essay on the Geography of Plants (Illustration Credit ins.7)

A fragment of an ancient Aztec manuscript that Humboldt purchased in Mexico (Illustration Credit ins.8)

Taken from an unauthorized atlas that illustrated Humboldt’s Cosmos, a map showing fossil strata through the ages of earth, as well as the subterraneous connections of volcanoes (Illustration Credit ins.9)

A spread from an unauthorized atlas that accompanied Cosmos, showing different vegetation zones and plant families across the globe (Illustration Credit ins.10)

American artist Frederic Edwin Church followed in Humboldt’s footsteps through South America and combined scientific details with sweeping views. The exhibition of his magnificent five-foot by ten-foot The Heart of the Andes caused a sensation; when Church was ready to ship the painting to Berlin, he received the news that Humboldt had just died. (Illustration Credit ins.11)

Humboldt in 1843, two years before he published the first volume of Cosmos (Illustration Credit ins.12)

According to Humboldt, this illustration was a very faithful representation of the library in his Berlin apartment in Oranienburger Straße. He welcomed his many visitors either in the library or in his study, just visible through the door. (Illustration Credit ins.13)

Ernst Haeckel’s drawings of medusae. He named the large one in the centre Desmonema Annasethe after his wife Anna Sethe. The caption read that he owed her ‘the happiest years of his life’. (Illustration Credit ins.14)

Yosemite Valley, California. John Muir referred to the Sierra Nevada as the ‘Range of Light’. (Illustration Credit ins.15)