Putting together a script for a short video should be somewhat easy but it is more complicated than I had expected it to be. The idea for this video came from my mother who has wanted to create a website for Alexander von Humboldt for a number of years. I started to create the website and as I was researching information for the website, I learned more about von Humboldt. The fact that Alexander von Humboldt is fairly unknown and at the same time a pretty interesting person was a reason that I thought he would be a good subject for a short video. I found this video "Who is Alexander von Humboldt" by George Mehler on line:
http://ed.ted.com/lessons/who-is-alexander-von-humboldt-george-mehler
Von Humboldt traveled over vast distances with Bonpland, taking scientific measurements, analyzing rocks, plants, drawing landscapes and Inca ruins. In order to visualize this film, I have put images created by him along with other artists from the period into an Animoto presentation.
Although I could create a narrative about his accomplishments, as I was reading his journals at the digital library at the University of Kansas http://www.avhumboldt.net/index.php?page=138
and looking at the etchings and lithographs created from his sketches, it occurred to me that the aesthetics of these works along with his prose are some of the reasons why he is such a compelling personality.
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| Andes Passage, Alexander von Humboldt |
In the 18th and 19th century, there were archaeological discoveries in many countries and the use of drawing to describe the sites along with the artifacts found there creates an aesthetic which adds to the appreciation of the accomplishments of these ancient civilizations. A simple cartoon does not convey the same idea of what these cultures were and what von Humboldt and his partner, Bonpland did. Archaeologists use the same type of drawing today along with photographs to document archaeological sites. A film similar to "Master and Commander of the World" would convey the vision that I have for this subject. Unfortunately, I don't have the budget or time to do that right now. Perhaps the next project...
I have started to read books like The Humboldt Current by Aaron Sachs, a professor of history at Cornell University. Here is a New York Times review of this book:
There are many online websites which discuss the influence von Humboldt had on 19th century artists such as this one by William S. Talbot at the Butler Institute of American Art which discusses the way his work influenced the artist Frederic Church, a Hudson River School artist.
The Americas Society had an exhibition about Humboldt's ideas in 2014 called The Unity of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt:
The webpage by Frank Baron, From Alexander von Humboldt to Frederic Edwin Church at the Humboldt Digital Library comparing etchings made from von Humboldt's sketches to paintings by Church is also an interesting resource:
http://www.uni-potsdam.de/romanistik/hin/hin10/inh_baron_3.htm
My script will be revised as I organize the images and synthesize the material. This is a preliminary draft.
My script will be revised as I organize the images and synthesize the material. This is a preliminary draft.
Script:
Opening
Opening
Introduction
Images of Alexander von Humboldt
Images of Alexander von Humboldt
Narrator
The name humboldt reverberates through the United States. Schools, parks, streets carry this name...statues are erected to celebrate him....Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote he was "one of those wonders of the world ... who appear from time to time, as if to show us the possibilities of the human mind."
Who was this man?
Images of major discoveries from the enlightenment
Born in 1769 during the enlightenment Alexander von Humboldt was interested in knowledge based on observation.
When he was 27, he received an inheritance and with it, began a journey which would change the world.
Between 1799 and 1804, von Humboldt traveled extensively in Mexico, Cuba and South America, exploring and describing it for the first time from a modern scientific point of view.
View of ocean current
Von Humboldt
My chief view in tracing a sketch of the currents of the Atlantic is to prove, that the motion of the waters towards the south-east, from Cape St. Vincent to the Canary islands, is the effect of the general motion, which the surface of the Ocean feels at its western extremity. We shall give but a very succinct account of the arm of the Gulf-stream, which in the 45th and 50th degrees of latitude, near the bank of Bonnet-Flamand, runs from the south-west to the north-east towards the coasts of Europe.
Narrator
Alexander von Humboldt traced the currents of the oceans and found connections between the regions of the oceans
Image of a chart of the Humboldt Current
Von Humboldt
This partial current becomes very strong when the winds have continued to blow a long time from the west: and, like that which flows along the isles of Ferro and Gomera, deposits every year on the western coasts of Ireland and Norway the fruit of trees, which belong to the torrid zone of America.
Animation of the 5 year voyage
Narrator
Scientist and artist, Alexander von Humboldt observed minute details about his environment and recorded these observations in his journals which he kept during a 5 year voyage from Spain to the canary Islands to cuba and south America.
Von Humboldt
In reflecting on the causes of the currents, we find, that they are much more numerous than is generally believed; for the waters of the sea may be put in motion by an external impulse,by a difference in heat and saltiness, by the periodical melting of the polar ice, or by the inequality of the evaporation, which takes place in different latitudes. Sometimes several of these causes concur to the same effect, and sometimes they produce effects that are contrary. Winds [64] that are light, but which, like the trade winds, are continually acting on the whole of a zone, cause a real movement of transition, which we do not observe in the heaviest tempests, because these last are circumscribed within a small space
Narrator
With Aime Bonpland, he traveled from Cuba to South America. He charted the route of the river climbed several mountains where he took measurements of atmosphere, magnetism collected plants and identified rocks.
Humboldt
Latitudes which we have just indicated are traversed by the greater part of the vessels, which return to Europe from the West India islands, or the Cape of Good Hope. Beside the direction and swiftness of the currents, this expedition would serve to discover the temperature of the sea at its surface, the lines without variation, the dip of the needle, and the intensity of the magnetic forces.
Observations of this kind become extremely valuable, when the position of the place where they were made has been determined by astronomical means.
Images of botanical drawings, image of Humboldt drawing
Humboldt
on the shores of the Hebrides, we collect seeds of mimosa scandens, of dolichos urens, of guilandina bonduc, and several other plants of [61]Jamaica, the Isle of Cuba, and of the neighbour- continent*.
Narrator
Humboldt saw connections between plants and where they grew. From this insight, he originated the idea of bio geography. By seeing these connections he also saw that there was a way to connect streams of air uniting the continents.
His description of these journeys was written up and published in an enormous set of volumes over 21 years. He was one of the first to propose that South America and Africa were joined. His later work, Kosmos (1845), proposed the idea that there was a unifying force in nature which brought together many separate branches of scientific knowledge.
References
Baron, F., From Alexander von Humboldt to Frederic Edwin Church: Voyages of Scientific and Artistic Creativity, Humboldt Digital Library.
retrieved from:
http://www.uni-potsdam.de/romanistik/hin/hin10/inh_baron_3.htm
retrieved from:
http://www.uni-potsdam.de/romanistik/hin/hin10/inh_baron_3.htm
Humboldt, A, Bonpland, A., 1818. Personal Narrative OF TRAVELS TO THE EQUINOCTIAL REGIONS OF THE NEW CONTINENT, DURING THE YEARS 1799-1804, LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN,PATERNOSTER ROW, London, 1818, AMS PRESS, INC.NEW YORK, 1966
retrieved from:
Mehler, G. Who is Alexander von Humboldt,
retrieved from:
http://ed.ted.com/lessons/who-is-alexander-von-humboldt-george-mehler
Millard, C. 2006 "Thinking Globally", Book Review of The Humboldt Current by Aaron Sachs, New York Times Review of Books, August 13, 2006
retrieved from:
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