The Germans, after all, represented the meeting of science and art on equal terms, as well as the convergence, but not the confusion, of two quite distinct degrees of talent.
– An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter, César Aira
The contemporary Argentinian writer César Aira defies categorization. Roberto Bolaño hails him as “an eccentric, but he is also one of the three or four best writers working in Spanish today.” Aira’s oeuvre is an admixture of genres that mirror the 18th and 19th-century German thinkers and naturalists who practised an amalgamation of wonderment, art-making, and scientific exploration. His book, An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter (2000), translated by Chris Andrews from Spanish, is a frenzied and eccentric account of the German painters Johann Moritz Rugendas (1802-1858) and Robert Krause (1834-1903) as they embark on a journey from Chile to Buenos Aires across the Argentine pampas. Rugendas wanted to paint the “physiognomy of nature”, encouraged by the multihyphenate naturalist Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859).
As soon as the artists reach Mendoza, Argentina, their daily sketches to measure and systemize their surroundings start giving way to the questions of philosophy. At first, these were abstract and objectively motivated since they were concerned with measurements of natural phenomena. Later these concepts evolved into something immeasurable and subjective based on personal experience and psychology. Soon, a tragic accident befalls the expedition party in the pampas blurring the line between art and madness. What follows in the second half of the book borders on psychedelic surreal delight. The prose is at once filled with isolating details of a procedure, for example, landscape painting, and the observer’s sensibility towards natural beauty. Aira writes,
In the midst of these magical alternations, the artists were briefly granted dreamlike visions, each more sweeping than the last. Although their journey traced a zigzag on the map, they were heading straight as an arrow towards openness. Each day was larger and more distant. As the mountains took on weight, the air became lighter and more changeable in its meteoric content, a sheer optics of superposed heights and depths… They kept barometric records; they estimated wind speed with a sock of light cloth and used two glass capillary tubes containing liquid graphite as an altimeter. The pink-tinted mercury of their thermometer, suspended with bells from a tall pole, preceded them like Diogenes’ daylight lamp.
The result is a glamorous mishmash of ideas, images, and paradoxes that celebrate the confluence of science and art. This book refers to what Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) called Wundergestalt, a “miracle form” in nature, with a particular focus on plants. In September 1786, the German polymath reached the southern Italian peninsula, witnessing a completely different landscape than the one he saw around his residence in Weimar with many plants growing in their natural habitat rather than in greenhouses of northern Europe.
The same plant, Goethe observed in his Italian travels, can have different growth patterns and different forms depending on where it grows. Little did he know at the time, his discovery would become foundational for his later botanical studies. His collected writings on plants, animals, and scientific methods were published as On Morphology [Zur Morphologie] (1817-24)1. The morphological plasticity in plant species was connected to their geographic location. Although, the more he studied the more he understood the limitations of scientific botanical terminology. Latin nomenclature, the names given to species for proper identification, based on distinguishable morphological features were static and fixed. They did not indicate the dynamism of the plant in any given environment. Language was somehow failing the great poet.
Two years later, in 1788, while in Rome, he pondered on the most prominent difficulty of scientific research—”that one must treat as fixed and stationary that which in nature is always in motion, that one must reduce to a simple, visible and at the same time graspable law that which in nature is eternally changing.” Goethe is gesturing towards the ever-changing phenomena in nature. Objects are always in motion and dependent on each other. Whereas, scientific endeavours must resort to consider these objects as fixed and discrete entities in order to measure and study them. Goethe remains one of the first European thinkers to comprehensively analyze the necessity to tackle this dichotomy between the reductionism of science and the ever-changing complexities of the natural world.
When Goethe visited the Swiss artist, Angelika Kauffmann’s (1741–1807) garden in Rome, he saw a stunning floribund carnation that left him speechless and compelled him to seriously consider committing to a different artistic practice. He admits to the reader that he could not “preserve this miracle form [Wundergestalt].” He began sketching the carnation to gain more insight into it. Oddly enough, this reminds me of my own childhood, when I carefully illustrated seashells I had collected from sand mounds or sea beaches. There was something about sketching and coloring them that made me visualize them in their natural habitat rather than just cataloguing my burgeoning seashell collection. It wasn’t until I started reading Goethe’s methodology that I truly recognized and appreciated the connection between art and science that has always existed.
Dalia Nassar, in her book Romantic Empiricism: Nature, Art, and Ecology from Herder to Humboldt (2022) closely analyses Goethe’s time in Italy and the formulation of his ideas. In Italy, he witnessed a close link between three things: scientific knowledge, artistic practice, and self-knowledge. The point where these three separate entities intersect is the point of “seeing differently” and “understanding” the pulsating life force of the natural world in all its variable and mutating glory. What do science and arts have to do with the self-knowledge that Goethe speaks about?
We now enter Goethe’s instructional insights for scientists and artists. The first volume of On Morphology begins with these words,
When through lively observation a person begins to confront nature, he will at first experience a tremendous compulsion to submit nature’s objects to his will. Before long, however, these objects will thrust themselves upon him with such force that he will have to recognize their power and revere their effects.
Goethe believed that a scientist’s role involves not only careful and objective observation of nature but also undergoing an inner transformation, which pertains to self-knowledge. It is a feedback loop between the knower and the known. Seeing and knowing do not occur in a vacuum but depend on our way of approaching natural phenomena and our relationship with nature itself. This central idea would later influence many naturalists and thinkers like Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913), Charles Darwin (1809-1882), Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) and Carl Jung (1875-1961).
Goethe’s Italian holiday was the beginning of his “aesthetic education.” He maintained that the practice of art by using techniques to draw minute details of natural forms and shapes leads to a deep understanding of nature. When a scientist undergoes aesthetic education, it holds not only artistic value but cognitive value as well. The scientist does not become an artist, but according to Goethe, becomes an artistic “dilettante.” A word often used for amateurs but in Goethean sensibility, seems to hold a novel appeal for learners and enthusiasts. In Rome, he observed various objects simultaneously in a historical context and grasped how each one functions while retaining its unique identity. He recognized their relationships with one another. Through viewing sculptures and paintings, he understood that both art and science reveal the form of an object through its context.
So, how can the practice of art help the study of miracle forms in the natural world?
We turn to our landscape painters in the Argentine pampas. Aira introduces Humboldt as the shadow backdrop against which his painters were working but the Humboldtian discipline of unity in everything pulsates throughout the pages of the novella. Humboldt was truly the first systematic biologist to have laid down a template for studying the art and sciences to explain nature in its totality. He is called the father of environmentalism and the founder of modern ecology. Although the term “ecology (oecologie in German)” was coined by a fellow German polymath Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919), it was Humboldt’s idea of nature as a dynamic “household (from the Ancient Greek word oikos)” in which living beings mutually influence and support one another” which laid the foundation that particular way of thinking.
The term “Humboldtian science” was first introduced by American historian Susan Faye Cannon in the 1970s. It emphasizes the importance of aesthetics in the study of geology and natural history, alongside the need for accurate measurements. Additionally, it advocates for a comparative analysis of global phenomena and their interrelationships.
It is essential to place Humboldt within the context of contemporary discussions about colonialism, imperialism, and slavery. Western science spearheaded by naturalists like Humboldt has historically exploited Indigenous knowledge and lands, and this legacy persists today, particularly in colonized countries where Indigenous peoples often lack access to their own cultural heritage. Humboldt denounced colonialism in his journals from his early trips to Latin America, holding colonial governments accountable for the exploitation of Indigenous peoples. But Humboldt did not publicly criticize the Spanish Empire’s encroachment on Latin American lands, revealing a complex stance amid the injustice.
Though he passionately criticized slavery and colonialism in the Americas, his arguments lacked a systematic approach. He saw himself more as a proponent of scientific discovery than an abolitionist, creating a gap between his scientific perspective and the sociopolitical responsibilities of scientists. Despite this gap, his arguments and ideas about the unity of humankind were widely embraced by mid-19th century abolitionists and anti-slavery advocates in the United States. Understanding the socio-political context in which Humboldt conducted his research is crucial for properly assessing his work and significance. César Aira’s book illustrates the sociopolitical context that European naturalists faced, as they were both captivated by the natural beauty of the Americas and perplexed by the uniqueness of Indigenous cultures.
Aira describes Humboldt as the “father of a discipline that virtually died with him: Erdtheorie or La Physique du monde, a kind of artistic geography, an aesthetic understanding of the world, a science of landscape.” But how did Humboldt arrive at this thesis of interconnectedness in nature? What inspired his methodologies?
In my studies for this short essay, I have not encountered the word Erdtheorie (erd means soil, earth in German) other than in Aira’s book. Perhaps, all transdisciplinary thinkers find a sense of camaraderie with Humboldt’s thinking in one form or the other and imbibe his ideas with their own to uncover Wundergestalt in the world. My introduction to Humboldt was from the popular biographical book The Invention of Nature (2015) by Andrea Wulf. It was the first book in English-language to celebrate the Prussian explorer and polymath. In March 1800, Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland (1773-1858) arrived in Lake Valencia, or Lake Tacarigua, in present-day Venezuela. Instead of finding a lush, green landscape, they found the region suffering from drought. Deforestation for farming purposes had completely changed the soil composition and hence the environment. These initial observations led Humboldt to realize that the relationship between living beings and environment was a two-way street—an insight which is still challenged across the world as climate change looms on every aspect of human life.
Humboldt’s ecological insight of organisms existing in a dynamic collaboration with their environment was based on the aesthetic study of nature. He argues that perception and sensibility through one’s lived experience was important to understand nature and that the scientist must employ the methods of an artist to achieve that. This idea came to fruition when Humboldt met Goethe for the first time in 1794 while visiting his brother Wilhelm in Jena. They agreed on the importance of historical and cultural context in modern science and its practices. However, while Goethe’s focus was on the individual forms in nature which he explicitly studied in his botanical observations and experiments, Humboldt took it one step ahead in understanding the relationship of individual organisms with the wider world surrounding them. This was possible through his geographical and meteorological explorations in South America. In his magnum opus, the five-volume Kosmos (Cosmos) (1845-56), he posits in the very beginning that “nature is, for thinking observation [denkende Betrachtung], unity in multiplicity, the connection of the many in form [Form] and mixture, of natural objects and natural forces, as one living whole [als ein lebendiges Ganzes]”. Here, thinking observation is inspired from Goethe’s idea that rational thinking must become more perceptual and perception more thought-like. In Humboldt’s thesis, it means applying a perceptive method to rational science of nature. This is followed by “unity in multiplicity,” which also mirrors Goethean thinking. Humboldt’s expedition to Chimborazo, the highest mountain in Ecuador, for example, resulted in charts and diagrams visually representing the altitudinal relationships between mountains, plants, animals, and weather patterns which he later compared to other mountainous systems from around the world. This work led to the synthesis of the interconnectedness “of the many in form [Form] and mixture, of natural objects and natural forces, as one living whole” as written in Cosmos.
Humboldt’s Cosmos would later influence many explorers and scientists. One of them would be Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) who came across Humboldt’s Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, During the Years 1799– 18042 and Cosmos in the 1840s before he began his travels to the Amazon in 1848 and then to the Malay Archipelago—now Malaysia and Indonesia—in 1854. During Wallace’s travels, Germany was not a colonial empire and was not yet unified as a single state. However, the Kingdom of Prussia, was a significant power just like other European powers during that time. In fact, Prussian naturalists collected and sent vast numbers of specimens from the Indo-Australian Archipelago to the Zoological Museum in Berlin by the middle of the nineteenth century3. Wallace, like Humboldt before him, kept meticulous records of Indigenous people and their cultures, acknowledged their contributions to natural history, kept measurements of physical characteristics of the environment, rainfall distribution, etc. from these travels. Curiously, both Humboldt and Wallace never visited India although subcontinental India snaked its way into their philosophies and scientific findings. The East India Company notoriously for reasons beyond the scope of this essay turned down Humboldt’s request to visit India multiple times.
In our search for Wundergestalt in German thinking and philosophies, we find another influential writer: Hermann Hesse (1877-1962). Hesse grew up under the Indian influence of his maternal grandfather, Hermann Gundert, who lived in Kerala as a missionary, and compiled a book of Malayalam grammar and a Malayalam-English dictionary. His parents, who also worked as missionaries in India, left for Germany where Hermann was born. Although Hermann’s childhood was shrouded in strict Protestantism, he discovered Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism as spiritual alternatives when he grew up. In 1911, he left for Asia on a trip to Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Sumatra. He wanted to visit Kerala where his grandparents and parents lived and worked. Unfortunately, Hesse suffered from terrible seasickness and returned home straight from Sri Lanka. He was disappointed with his visit to the Southeast Asian countries where he could not find the spiritual connection he had expected to find if he visited India based on his readings of sacred texts. Only in 1922 would he publish his “Indian poem,” the novel Siddhartha, as a coherent work of his “India experience”. But his travels in Asia brought him face to face with the riches of the tropical jungle which clearly inspired him to visualize the Goethean wonder in person.
Goethe said, “I am here, that I may wonder!” In a newly translated book called Butterflies: Reflections, Tales, and Verse (2023)4 by Herman Hesse, edited by Volker Michels and translated by Elisabeth Lauffer, we see the writer’s fascination with chasing and observing butterflies in their natural habitat in far-flung tropical forests infested with crocodiles. Hesse writes about how the modern sciences and technology have not equipped us to grasp “nature’s symbolic sorcery,” something which the pre-industrial world was intimately aware of. Expanding of Goethe’s call for introducing aesthetics in formal education, he criticizes the universities of his day which rather than teaching a sense of wonderment, “teach the very opposite: counting and measuring over delight, sobriety over enchantment, a rigid hold on scattered individual parts over an affinity for the unified and whole.”
Hesse writes an ode to the “form” of butterfly, not just its natural history, morphology, habitat, adaptations, and diversity but also its relationship with spirituality, culture, and a higher philosophy for life. He engages in a “thinking observation” when he relates the advent of industrialization and loss of names for butterflies in local Swiss dialects. Some of these names for butterflies and moths are Fifalter or Vogel (“bird”), Tagvogel (“day bird”), Nachtvogel (“night bird”), Sommervogel (“summer bird”) or broadly Butterfliegen (“butterflies”) or Molkendiebe (“whey thieves”), each one creative and poetic. Perhaps, Hesse demonstrates a Wundergestalt of etymologies used for the natural world, something which failed Goethe as we saw above in the case of the carnation.
What value does wonder have in our lives? What is the significance of Goethe’s aesthetic education in today’s world? How can the Goethean viewpoint help us in the modern environmental crisis? The various themes in this essay highlight a philosophical perspective shared by three German thinkers during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Their approach to integrating scientific reasoning with art and aesthetics expanded their understanding of nature. While Goethe and Humboldt engaged in scientific practice, Hesse was a poet and novelist. Nevertheless, all three individuals approached their respective fields with a philosophical perspective that was deeply enriched by aesthetic awareness.
Through their methodologies and thinking, we recognize that sensitivity and imagination are essential for understanding living organisms as part of an interconnected and dynamic system. This highlights the significance of lived experience in scientific understanding, particularly regarding topics such as empire, geography, Indigenous culture, and scientific practice. This nineteenth century philosophy invites modern scientists to adopt artistic sensibilities and encourages artists to utilize scientific tools for a better understanding of our connection with nature. Aesthetic education is crucial for tackling abstraction and its consequences, which can significantly impact ethical and political responses to challenges like climate change.I turn to Hesse for a final reflection on the systemic problems that plague our world in the same way they existed in the twentieth century. For Hesse, wonderment was a complete immersion using his eyes or any of his five other senses in the vibrant language and images that nature and its creations had to offer. And in that moment, Hesse forgets the human world characterized by its insatiable need to organize, pilfer, segregate, rationalize, and exploit nature for its purposes. Instead, he escapes “the world of separation and enters the world of unity, where one thing or creature says to the other: Tat tvam asi (“That thou art”).
Bibliography:
- On Morphology [Zur Morphologie], also known as the “Morphologische Hefte,” was published in German in two volumes. Volume 1 appeared between 1817 and 1822 and volume 2 appeared between 1823 and 1824.
- Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, During the Years 1799– 1804. Edited and translated by Thomasina Ross. 3 volumes. London: Bohm, 1852– 1853.
- Naturalists, Explorers and Field Scientists in South-East Asia and Australasia. Edited by Indraneil Das and Andrew Alek Tuen. Springer, 2016.
- Butterflies: Reflections, Tales and Verse by Hermann Hesse, selected by Volker Michels, illustrations by Jakob Hübner, translated from the German by Elisabeth Lauffer, Kales Press, 2023.
