Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander Freiherr von Humboldt 1769 1859 by Julius Friedrich Anton Schrader
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander Freiherr von Humboldt (help·info) (September 14, 1769, Berlin – May 6, 1859, Berlin) was a Prussian naturalist and explorer, and the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher, and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt. Humboldt's quantitative work on botanical geography was foundational to the field of biogeography. Between 1799 and 1804, von Humboldt travelled to Latin America, exploring and describing it from a scientific point of view for the first time. His description of much of this journey was written up in an enormous set of volumes over a 21-year span. He was one of the first to propose that the lands bordering the Atlantic were once joined (South America and Africa in particular). Late in life, in his five-volume work Kosmos, he attempted to unify the various branches involved in knowledge of the world. Statue of Alexander von Humboldt outside Humboldt University, Unter den Linden, Berlin. Note the Spanish inscription describing him as "the second discoverer of Cuba."It is not often that a man postpones to his seventy-sixth year, and then successfully executes, the crowning task of his life. Yet this was Humboldt's case. The first two volumes of the Cosmos were published, and in the main composed, between the years 1845 and 1847. The idea of a work which should convey not only a graphic description, but an imaginative conception of the physical world which should support generalization by details, and dignify details by generalization, had floated before his mind for more than half a century. It first took definite shape in a set of lectures delivered by him before the University of Berlin in the winter of 1827–1828. These lectures formed, as his latest biographer expresses it, "the cartoon for the great fresco of the Kosmos." The scope of this remarkable work may be briefly described as the representation of the unity amid the complexity of nature.
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Keywords: 1769, 1859, alexander, anton, art, artist, artwork, berlin, civilization, classic, culture, depiction, drawing, exhibition, freiherr, friedrich, gallery, german, germany, heinrich, historic, history, humboldt, image, julius, master, masterpiece, modern, museum, painter, painters, painting, picture, piece, portrayal, realism, realist, romantic, schrader, von, wilhelm
