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Plate 67, in Annales du Muséum d'histoire naturelle, tome 8, Georges Cuvier, 1806. © Paris, Muséum d'Histoire naturelle
The emerging Spirit of Europe was fueled by an intellectual effervescence and knowledge-sharing that had little or no regard for national boundaries. Thinkers, objects, books and ideas moved freely between countries inspiring innovative projects, a phenomenon attested to by the Humboldts' ambitious undertakings. And it was by nourishing their international networks and generously sharing the fruit of their work that the Humboldt brothers were able to accomplish their great universal project: contribute to a better understanding of both Nature and Humankind.
A monumental editorial undertaking
Once back in Europe, Alexander devoted much of his time to publishing the narrative of his American Expedition. It took him close to thirty years to complete the 30-volume Voyage aux Régions Equinoxiales du Nouveau Continent, fait en 1799, 1800, 1801, 1802, 1803 et 1804 (Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, during the years 1799-1804).
In 1810, Alexander began publishing his Vues des Cordillères et monumens des peuples indigènes de l'Amérique (Views of the Cordilleras and Monuments of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas), a work at the crossroads of science and literature. The engravings, based primarily on Alexander's original sketches, are both precise scientific illustrations and works of art in their own right. They are the fruit of a Europe-wide collaboration between Italian, German and French artists. As for the text, it comprises both Alexander's American field observations and the comments and opinions of the numerous scholars with whom he exchanged following his return, including Ennio Quirino Visconti, the most eminent European archeologist of his time, to whom the work is dedicated.
Alexander von Humboldt (author), Aimé Bonpland (author), Jean-Thomas Thibault (artist), Louis Bouquet (engraver), 1810, Colored engraving, 50,8 x 68,5 cm, Paris, Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Bibliothèque centrale du Muséum, © Paris, Museum national d'Histoire naturelle
Humboldt and Bonpland's 30-volume Voyage aux Régions Equinoxiales du Nouveau Continent, was one of the most ambitious publishing projects of the time, comparable to the 23-volume Description de l'Egypte (Description of Egypt) published between 1809 and 1829 by order of Emperor Napoleon le Grand.
The world portrayed through maps
The Humboldt brothers first met Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, one of the most prominent German intellectuals of their time, in Weimar where Wilhelm lived from 1794-1797; and the three developed lasting ties. Goethe and Wilhelm shared a fascination for classical Antiquity and an interest in philology and linguistics. With Alexander, Goethe shared a passion for mineralogy and botany.
The three Berlin scholars' shared interests and mutual esteem resulted in two distinct projects that, while they focused on very different topics, both sought to represent the world using practical tools.
Map of the Equinoctial Regions
In 1807, Alexander dedicated one of his first books, Ideen zu einer Geographie der Pflanzen (Essay on the Geography of Plants), to Goethe. Alexander sent Goethe a preliminary print in German, promising to send him the missing table at a later date
Instead of waiting for the missing document, Goethe decided to construct his own map based on the data contained in the book. His illustration, a colorful composite landscape, compares the mountains of the Old and New World. Goethe's map was so widely reproduced and distributed all over Europe that it is better known than Alexander's original.
Alexander von Humboldt (author), Aimé Bonpland (author), Anne-Charlotte de Schönberg (draughtswoman), Louis Bouquet (engraver), 1805, 53,5 x 83 cm, St. Louis Missouri Botanical Garden, © St. Louis Missouri Botanical Garden, Peter H. Raven Library
Alexander von Humboldt, 1804, 33 x 22,7 cm, Paris, Musée national d'histoire naturelle, Bibliothèque centrale du Muséum, fonds anciens Ms 456, folio 28, © Paris, Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle
Alexander von Humboldt (author), Bertel Thorvaldsen (artist), Raphaël Urbain Massard (engraver), 1807, Berlin, Stiftung Stadtmuseum, Inv.Nr.: HU 99/243 SF, © Berlin, Stiftung Stadtmuseum
Jean-Sébastien Devèze de Chabriol, 1814, Archives départementales du Cantal, fonds Aymar (Société La Haute-Auvergne), 14 NUM 26, © Archives départementales du Cantal
Wilhelm von Humboldt, 1812, Encre sur papier, Weimar, Klassik Stiftung Weimar, Goethe und Schiller-Archiv, inv. GSA 78/300, © Klassik Stiftung Weimar
Les langues de l’Europe
En 1810, Goethe suggère à Wilhelm d’illustrer une carte répertoriant les langues parlées dans le monde. Moins doué que son frère pour la cartographie appliqué, Wilhelm se content de décrire la carte idéale. Il adresse par écrit ses instructions à Goethe, un texte de dix-neuf pages que Goethe commence à transposer en image. Aucune trace du dessin n’a été malheureusement conservée.
Cependant, pour l'exposition réalisée par PSL en 2014, une équipe franco-allemande a entrepris le travail engagé voici deux siècles. Elle propose une première traduction visuelle des instructions de Wilhelm : la carte générale des langues parlées en Europe.
© Julien Cavero, Paris, 2014, LabEx TransferS, scientific assistance: Sandrine Maufroy and David Blankenstein
From the stand-point where God and nature had been pleased to place me, and where, next, I did not neglect to exert my faculties according to circumstances, I looked all about me to mark where great tendencies were in operation and lastingly prevailed. I, for my part, by study, by performances of my own, by collections and experiments, endeavoured to reach forth towards those tendencies, and faithfully toiling upwards to the level of the achievements I could not myself have accomplished; in all simplicity, innocent of all feeling of rivalry or envy, with perfectly fresh and vital sense I presumed to appropriate to myself what was offered to the century by its best minds. My way, therefore, ran parallel with very many beautiful undertakings till it would next turn towards others. The new accordingly was never foreign to me, nor was I ever in danger either of adopting it in a state of unpreparedness, or by reason of old-fashioned prejudice, rejecting it."
Otherness as an intellectual horizon
Friedrich Schlegel, 1808, Bibliothèque nationale de France, © Bibliothèque nationale de France
India, the cradle of Europe
The study of ancient non-European civilizations deeply influenced Europe's perception of its own history and identity. In France, Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign inspired wild public enthusiasm (Egyptomania) for the Reign of the Pharaohs, while in Germany, Friedrich von Schlegel and Franz Bopp's pioneering work in linguistics, positing that numerous European languages originated in India, caught the public eye.
Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier (Research on the Language and Philosophy of India), published in 1808, is one of the most significant works of the period. Schlegel, using his observations of Sanskrit and Amerindian languages, postulated that the study of linguistics must be based on comparative grammar rather than on lexicographic comparisons. This new approach to the discipline led to the development of comparative grammar and modern-day comparative linguistics.
The Humboldt brothers, as long-time students of non-European civilizations, inspired and encouraged their fellow scholars to pursue innovations in linguistics and supported numerous research projects in the field.
Egyptian hieroglyphs
Jean-François Champollion's decipherment of the Rosetta stone hieroglyphs was a pivotal moment in our understanding of Ancient Egypt. Wilhelm von Humboldt met Champollion through his brother Alexander, and the two began a correspondence that lasted from June 1824 to July 1827. From Champollion, Wilhelm learned that the Egyptian hieroglyphic system contained both ideograms (figurative representations) and phonograms (phonetic representations) similar to European alphabets.
Humboldt used Champollion's deciphering system to translate inscriptions found on the statues of the Goddess Sekhmet; and on March 24th, 1825, presented a communication on Egyptology, Über vier Äegyptische löwenköpfige Bildsäulen in den hiesigen Königlichen Atnikensammlungen (On four Egyptian sculptures with lion's heads from the royal collection of antiquities of Berlin) to the Berlin Academy of Sciences. Thanks to their correspondence, Wilhelm was able to convince the heretofore-skeptical German scientific community to accept Champollion's deciphering system. Champollion, in turn, provided Wilhelm with the information required to support and develop his theory of linguistics.
1828 © Private collection
Seated figure of the Goddess Sekhmet
1388-1351 BCE© BPK, Berlin, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Jürgen Liepe
Wilhelm von Humboldt, Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Handschriftenabteilung, Coll. ling. fol. 152. p. 5 recto. © Berlin, Staatsbibliothek
Wilhelm von Humboldt, 1824, Encre sur papier, Bibliothèque nationale de France, département des Manuscrits, NAF 203573, fol. 253, © Bibliothèque nationale de France
fragment 1. 16th century, 405,5 x 22,5 cm, Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Hanschriftenabteilung, MS. amer. 2, © Berlin, Staatsbibliothek
Amerindian hieroglyphs
Alexander von Humboldt was also interested in hieroglyphs, but devoted his efforts to studying those found in the Americas. In his Views of the Cordilleras and Monuments of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas, he presents the Mexican codices he brought back from his travels and others he uncovered in the libraries of Paris, London, Rome and Dresden.
To Alexander, the significance of these "monuments" goes far beyond their aesthetic value; he believes that they play an integral part in his description of Man and Nature because they each translate a specific worldview and a unique perspective on observed Nature. Alexander focused on analyzing Aztec maps, calendars and numeral systems in order to better understand the relations between the region's various ancient population groups and also to uncover possible universal principals linking the different systems.
A quest for languages
Language and worldview
On December 31st 1819, Wilhelm resigned his last official position and retired to his Tegel estate. From thereon, he devoted himself to intellectual pursuits, with a particular focus on his research on language and languages. Wilhelm built one of the most extensive collections of non-European linguistic materials in Europe: lexical lists, texts, grammars … thanks to his own field work in Spain, France Rome, England and Germany and to the data collected in the Americas by his brother Alexander. His research also benefited from the productive exchanges he developed and maintained with other specialists such as the French sinologist Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat, John Crawfurd in England or John Pickering in the United States.
According to Humboldt's theory, "Language is the formative organ of thought." Moreover, he believed that language is not only a means of communication but also a precondition for the possibility of cognition. It follows that each language, as a product of thought, engenders a specific "worldview". For Humboldt, each language has its own specific linguistic structure, its own identity and that structure itself produces an equally specific worldview.
Wilhelm von Humboldt, 1859, Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Littérature et art, X-26524, © Bibliothèque nationale de France
Wilhelm also argued for the necessity of developing comparative linguistics. In June 1820, Wilhelm von Humboldt addressed the Berlin Academy for the first time. Amongst other topics, he outlined a plan for the creation of a gigantic analytic system to compare all world languages; a project he had already formulated in Paris twenty years earlier.
Wilhelm von Humboldt, 1836, Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Littérature et art, X-4985, © Bibliothèque nationale de France
The Kawi language of Indonesia
Wilhelm von Humboldt passed away at Tegel Castle in 1835, leaving the book summarizing his groundbreaking linguistics project unpublished. His last and most remarkable work was a comprehensive study in three volumes: Über die Kawi sprache aufder Insel Java (On the Kawi language of the isle of Java). One year after his death, his brother Alexander published the work posthumously. It embodies a lifetime of research, thought and theory on linguistics and anthropology. In his introduction, Wilhelm outlines his general observations on the language and explains the empirical methodology he used to study both the grammatical structure and the literature of Kawi and other Austronesian languages.
Wilhelm von Humboldt is undoubtedly the most important Philosopher of Language of his time and one of the founding fathers of modern linguistics. Unfortunately, his theories were not always well received in the 19th century.
20th century linguistics scholars however, have rediscovered and reconsidered his work, either via the cultural theory of linguistics (Vossler) or structural linguistics (Saussure, Benveniste, Bloomfield, Whorf, Chomsky). He has been an inspiration to all philosophers of language with the exception of those that hail from the Anglo-Saxon school of analytic philosophy.
Comparative anthropology
Early 19th century intellectuals focused considerable energy on questions regarding the origins of Man and the diversity of Mankind. The Humboldt brothers were no exception; they however, took what we would now call a cross disciplinary approach to the subject, mixing anthropology, philosophy and politics. By studying the cultures, civilizations and languages of ancient and modern peoples, the Humboldt brothers were able to use the past to analyze and understand the present.
Classical Antiquity
The art and culture of ancient Greece and Rome remained a major source of inspiration in early 19th century Europe. Wilhelm von Humboldt was particularly influenced by the example of ancient Greece. While posted to Rome (1803-1808), Wilhelm planned to write a study of Demosthenes and other Ancient Greek orators.
In reality, he was far less interested in the literary and linguistic qualities of Demosthenes' discourses than he was fascinated by classical cultural and political history.
In a letter to Jean Geoffroy Schweighaeuser dated November 4th 1807, Wilhelm announced his intention to write a history of the decline and fall of the Greek Republics:
Henry Luise, 1826, 25,5 x 20 cm, Berlin, Stiftung Preussische Schlösser und Gärten , © BPK, Berlin / Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Image SPSG
His goal was to uncover the essence of ancient Greek thought (that he did not hesitate to compare to contemporary German thought) and understand the character of the ancient Greek nation. Encouraged by his work on ancient Greece and later on ancient Rome, Wilhelm went on to study other nations.
The French character
Wilhelm began developing the concept of comparative anthropology around 1800, while living in Paris. His initial research was devoted to European cultures; he studied the French, the Germans and the Basques. Wilhelm's Paris notebooks illustrate his meticulous observation of the "national character of the French".
Although his research on comparative physiognomy was a failure, his research in the areas of culture and aesthetics was more productive. For example, he published an important study on French theater. The concept of character - of an individual, a language, a nation, an era – became a leitmotiv in Wilhelm von Humboldt's thought and work.
Wilhelm von Humboldt, 1866, Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Philosophie, histoire, sciences de l'homme, 8-OB-4, © Bibliothèque nationale de France
Wilhelm von Humboldt, 1800, Bibliothèque nationale de France. © Bibliothèque nationale de France
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