Bodmer_Publication

Reading Bodmer Through Humboldt
Hartwig Isernhagen
1. Beautiful Science?
The somewhat sparse literature on Bodmer gives a prominent position to the
opposition of Art and Science, of the aesthetic and knowledge proper. This permits
it to allocate the one side to Bodmer, the other to Wied, and then to ask how they
come together in the illustrations for the Travels. Individual prints can thus be discussed
as mediating the two interests in better or inferior ways, or as tending more
to the one side or the other. 1
This perspective reflects the hierarchical relation between the scientist as employer
and the artist as employee. It assumes that art and science produce knowledge
of different kinds. This division of labor is, however, a product of the nineteenth
century. 2 After the “iconic turn,” contemporary theory tends to put the two
together again; convinced that we think in and through images much of the time,
it analyzes how images are involved in the production of knowledge. 3 In this
endeavor, recourse to the theory and practice of earlier periods provides a historical
dimension to its basically ahistorical project.
The Enlightenment and Romanticism, on the other hand – the periods that
shaped Wied’s and Bodmer’s thinking – placed science and art in a continuum of
knowledge, in ways foreign to us. The literature on Bodmer recognizes this, too,
in isolated instances. And it repeatedly refers to the best witness to this state of
affairs: Alexander von Humboldt. But it does not make systematic use of this
insight. 4 And thus it happens, that romantic again and again becomes the opposite
of “faithfully represented.” 5 The same prejudice stands behind the opinion that for
Wied, who supposedly belonged to a tradition of strict empiricism, Bodmer became
so valuable because he had no opportunity “to develop or exercise an artistic
vision more in keeping with the Romantic artistic and cultural trends of the
1830s.” 6 This is plainly untenable. Bodmer begins with the genre of the Vedute
and ac quires great mastery in it early on in his career. Notably, this genre, which
is a favorite of Romanticism, is programmatically characterized by both the combination
of precise, quasi-scientific detail and aesthetic appeal.
To view the collaboration between Bodmer and Wied in terms of a strictly
defined division of labor between art and science is misleading, moreover, in view
of the general character of Wied’s two great works: Both talk of experiences, both
are travel narratives that integrate heterogeneous interests among which no predetermined
hierarchy exists. It is precisely this openness to diversity that makes
for the distinctive qualities of the genre. And this variety of interests includes
scientific knowledge as well as aesthetic enjoyment.
Indeed, there are indications that science and aesthetics went together for
Wied. He does not merely regard as self-evident that knowledge, particularly
scientific knowledge, is a great good, instead he calls its production “schön,” which
one might translate as “beautiful” or as “pleasant.” Thus he talks of “the pleasant
study of nature” 7 – i.e., of natural science, “the most pleasant of studies.” 8 It is
justified to assume that this formula comprises both the collecting of information
in the field and its analysis and presentation in more or less comprehensive written
reports. In view of several allusions that Wied makes to the labors and dangers of
collecting material in Brazil or on the Missouri (travel in such regions is dangerous
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