[hopos-g] Invitation au Séminaire Oecologie
Aurore Franco
Cher.es collègues,
J’ai le plaisir de vous inviter à la 4e séance de notre séminaire Oecologie. Les sources allemandes de l’écologie (ERC Oecologie 2025-2030) le jeudi 22 janvier à 14h30.
Nous aurons le plaisir d’écouter Qiyu Long (Hunan Normal University/Humboldt Center for Transdisciplinary Studies) dont la présentation s’intitule « Chinese Landscape Painting and Alexander von Humboldt’s Naturgemälde ». La communication sera suivie d’une table ronde en présence de Jean-Baptiste Vuillerod (Université de Namur), Sylvie Le Grand-Ticchi (Paris-Nanterre, CEREG) ainsi que de l’équipe ERC.
L’évènement se déroulera de 14h30 à 17h00 dans la Salle du Conseil de la Maison de la Recherche de l’Université Sorbonne Nouvelle (4 rue des Irlandais 75005). Le séminaire sera suivi d’une galette à 17h00 dans l’espace de convivialité, qui nous donnera l’occasion d’échanger plus librement.
Vous trouverez ici le lien google meet pour vous connecter online : https://meet.google.com/yii-vudh-fha
Vous trouverez ci-dessous l’abstract de la présentation, ainsi que le programme de notre séminaire sur notre site.
Au plaisir de vous y retrouver,
Amitiés,
Aurore Franco
« Chinese Landscape Painting and Alexander von Humboldt’s Naturgemälde »
This talk examines Alexander von Humboldt’s concept of the Naturgemälde (“natural tableau”) not merely as a scientific diagram, but as an aesthetic mode of grasping nature as an experiential whole. I argue that Humboldt organizes natural knowledge through movement, shifting viewpoints, and comparative scale, rather than through a single, fixed perspective.
To make this structure visible, I introduce the Chinese landscape framework of the Three Distances—high, deep, and level distance—as an analytical lens. Reading Humboldt’s account of climbing Chimborazo through this framework, I show how high distance operates through vertical quantification toward an invisible summit; how deep distance emerges when fog dissolves panoramic vision and redirects attention toward depth, danger, and the Earth’s interior; and how level distance is produced through cross-regional comparison, allowing local observation to expand into a global geographical horizon. I then trace the early emergence of the term Naturgemälde in Humboldt’s 1795 Swiss fragment on Lake Lucerne and relate it to the later Ideen zu einer Geographie der Pflanzen nebst einem Naturgemälde（A Geognostical Essay on the Superposition of Rocks, in both Hemispheres）, where image and text function together: diagrams visually condense the natural whole, while written description systematizes scientific knowledge. Finally, I suggest a cross-cultural resonance between Humboldt’s idea of Naturgenuss (the enjoyment of nature) and Chinese landscape aesthetics. In both traditions, nature is not simply represented, but entered, traversed, and understood as a living, experiential world.
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