Now that the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., has reopened, visitors can once again enjoy an extraordinary exhibition–ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT AND THE UNITED STATES:  ART, NATURE, AND CULTURE.
You are forgiven for raising your eyebrows and asking, “Who?”

The answer is fascinating.  Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), right, was recognized as the most important naturalist of the 19th century. Born in Prussia, he pioneered the idea that the planet was connected by a “unity of nature” that wove the globe into a living world-wide web.  Throughout the 19th century, this idea evolved into a formative concept that natural history shaped national destiny.  Humboldt’s ideas about nature were a prelude to environmentalism today– the impact of climate change on the environment is clear in the devastating wildfires, hurricanes, and rising sea levels that are transforming everyday life.

Above, right: Friedrich Georg Weitsch, Portrait of Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859), 1806, oil on canvas, 49 5/8 x 36 3/8”. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie, Photo: bpk Bildagentur / Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen, Berlin, Germany / Klaus Goeken / Art Resource, NY.

The exhibition shows how Humboldt’s explorations gave his approach to nature a strong scientific basis. Beginning in 1799, he spent five years traveling in South America and Mexico to study plant and animal life, stopping in the United States in 1804 on his way back to Europe. He had read Thomas Jefferson’s 1785 book, NOTES ON THE STATE OF VIRGINIA, and wanted to meet the President who rhapsodized about America as an ’empire of liberty’ where agrarian republicanism would flouirsh. Though Humboldt visited for only for six weeks, his impact was  enormous among a leadership that embraced the connection between the New World environment and America’s destiny. He gave Jefferson a detailed map he had drawn of Mexico, and the president used it as he negotiated with Spain over boundaries for the Louisiana Purchase.  Jefferson found him a kindred spirit, calling him “one of the greatest ornaments of the age.” Humboldt was also a charmer, and Dolley Madison declared that “all the ladies say they are in love with him.”

Organized by SAAM Senior Curator Eleanor Jones Harvey, the exhibition conveys Humboldt’s impact on America’s cultural development in the 19th century in the visual arts, science, politics, and exploration.  His ideas about nature and identity fit well with the rise of an American culture based on exceptionalism–the belief that America’s manifest destiny was to create a ‘more perfect union’ as free and uncorrupted as the New World itself. As Humboldt wrote to Secretary of State James Madison in 1804, he came to the U.S. to enjoy “the spectacle of a free people worthy of a great destiny.”
Artist Charles Willson Peale, a close friend of Jefferson’s,  met Humboldt when he arrived at the docks in Philadelphia. Before taking him to Washington, Peale showed Humboldt his own natural history museum–“a world in miniature.” Peale’s wonderful portrait, “The Artist in His Museum” (1822), [ed. note: located then on the 2nd floor of Independence Hall] is displayed in the exhibition, along with the detailed map of Mexico’s boundaries Humboldt gave to Jefferson to strengthen his hand negotiationg with Spain. 

In the Peale museum painting, the skeletal legs of a mammoth can be seen lurking behind a curtain. This exhibition displays this very skeleton–a stunning gallery centerpiece that is remarkably “WOW!”  The mammoth (actually a mastodon) was the largest known terrestrial creature in Jefferson and Peale’s time, and they touted it as emblematic of America’s potential greatness.  Jefferson hoped Lewis and Clark would find at least skeletal remains on their Westward exploration—they didn’t–but Peale was present for the excavation of a mammoth in 1801 in a marl pit near Newburgh, NY.  He devised an ingenious pulley system to retrieve the skeleton, which he displayed at his museum as “the 9th wonder of the world.” Peale’s painting “Exhumation of the Mastodon” (1806-08) is displayed in the exhibition near the skeleton itself.

Humboldt’s enthusiasm for the New World matched Jefferson’s, who once posed the regenerative powers of the wilderness against Old World cities that he described as “sores on the body politic”. As Curator Eleanor Jones Harvey shows, Humboldt’s concept of wilderness and destiny became an important influence on the development of American landscape painting as well. He encouraged American painters to portray the continent’s natural wonders like Niagara Falls and Virginia’s Natural Bridge, and to treat them as iconic symbols of America’s uncorrupted greatness. Harvey sees Humboldt’s ideas as inspiring some of the most influential American artists of the 19th century to weave “messages about American cultural identity” into their paintings.

To show how those messages were conveyed,  the exhibition includes more than 100 artworks by Albert Bierstadt, Karl Bodmer, George Catlin, Frederic Church, and Samuel F.B. Morse among others. Church, a leading painter of the Hudson River school, idolized Humboldt and placed his “unity of nature” concept as central to his art.  The exhibition features several of Church’s painting, including –as Humboldt had suggested–such natural wonders as”NIagara” (1852), above, and “Natural Bridge” (1857).

Artists made regular pilgrimages to meet Humboldt in Paris and Berlin until his death in 1859. One of the most riveting visits was that of Samuel F.B. Morse in 1831. Morse was working on his major canvas “Gallery of the Louvre” (1831-33), but Humboldt was much more interested in Morse’s experimentation with the telegraph–an invention that excited the naturalist because he knew that “instant communication” would transform everyday life.  The exhibition displays a patent model of Morse’s telegraph, and a piece of the TransAtlantic Cable invented by Cyrus Field that originally connected Newfoundland to Ireland. Humboldt was transfixed by both inventions because they exemplified his idea of unifying the natural world into a global network.

Curator Harvey also shows how Humboldt’s belief in democracy shaped his support for Abolitionism. He abhorred slavery and viewed it as the central flaw in America’s democracy, though he did not bring the subject up with Jefferson. He also believed in the equality of indigenous people throughout North and South America, and vehemently opposed popular notions posing “savagery vs. civilization.” As a humanitarian, he felt that no race was above another because “all are alike designed for freedom.”

His belief in racial equality reflected his overall conviction that the “unity of nature” rejected any structural hierarchy. Humboldt organized his detailed lists of flora and fauna globally and without any subjective ranking of “top/down.”  But although steeped in science, he was also immersed in the 19th century’s embrace of Romanticism, and his ideas weave an intricate web combining science and aesthetics.  The sense of “wonder” was a central feature of Romanticism, and America’s vast landscape seemed an endless source of inspiration to Humboldt, and to artists he influenced like Frederic Church. Church intended his wondrous 1864 painting “Aurora Borealis” to be an homage to Humboldt, but the naturalist died before Church could show it to him.

The exhibition will be at the American Art Museum until January 3, 2021. I also highly recommend Curator Harvey’s online ‘virtual tour.’  When I asked why she decided to focus on Humboldt, she explained that he kept appearing in other research and exhibitions she has done. She  realized his impact was deeply consequential to 19th century art, culture, and science, and decided–why not make him the leading figure in his own production?

Below, left: Rembrandt Peale, Portrait of Alexander von Humboldt, 1809–1812, oil and encaustic on canvas, 22 1/2 x 27″, Collection of Robert W. Hoge and Immaculada Socias Hoge.

As a cultural critic who has spent years curating shows, I strongly believe that an exhibition must have an original idea, a strong story told through carefully-selected art and artifacts, and a hefty dose of dazzle. Eleanor Jones Harvey has achieved this wonderfully.  ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT is a must-see experience.  

By Amy Henderson, Associate Editor (right)

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT AND THE UNITED STATES:  ART, NATURE, AND CULTURE will be on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum through January 3, 2021.  Eleanor Jones Harvey as written a catalogue of the same name, which is available on the SAAM website and Amazon.