"Unity of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt and the Americas"
"Unity of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt and the Americas"
Americas Society's "edifying exhibition" conjures the Prussian scientist's voyage through books, letters, plant specimens, scientific equipment, and several fine portraits.
The Prussian naturalist was pop-star famous in the nineteenth century (Thomas Jefferson invited him to stay at the White House), after spending five years travelling the length of Latin America and founding the modern discipline of geography in the process. This diffuse but edifying exhibition conjures his voyage through books, letters, plant specimens, scientific equipment, and several fine portraits—including one in which he wears an open-necked shirt and baggy breeches in the jungle, like a proto-Fabio....
