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Naturgemalde Unity of Nature Alexander Von Humboldt Giclee

Price:$130.00

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Highlights

[This is a Giclee version printed on Somerset Velvet paper]

Note to international buyers: The processing time for the Giclee Version is slightly longer as my production partner does not do international shipping. The print will be shipped to me and once I receive it, will ship it to the final destination.

Alexander Von Humboldt changed the way that the world perceived science, nature and the human connection with the universe. He was one of the most influential people of his time, and his legacy continues to inspire and inform new generations.

There is one image that is central to his body of work and that is his sketch of the the equatorial region which was the center piece of his Essay on the Geography of Plants.

After reading the fascinating biography of Humboldt's life, The Invention of Nature, by Andrea Wulf, I was inspired to obtain a copy of this sketch for my own library. I was very surprised to find that this was not something that was readily available.

The original was a 24 by 36 inch insert to Humboldt's massive first volume of work, Essay on the Geography of Plants. It seems that it has not been mass-produced to be made available for casual interest. I was only able to find scans of various forms of the original from different online sources. There seems to be a number of versions of this sketch in different languages and different color schemes. My understanding is that there were a number of such sketches produced by different artists and used for different purposes. Some of the versions have better color schemes than others while some of the scans are higher resolutions than others.

Since this image is now in the public domain, I set out to create a version of it that is aesthetically pleasing and with as high a resolution as I could reasonably create. To do this, I patched together different versions of the sketch and then used Photoshop to fix crease lines that some of the versions had (as a result of the original versions being folded as an insert to the Essay). I searched for a versions of the text with highest resolution, extracted this text from its original background and laid it over the enhanced background sketch. I then touched up the details to the best of my ability to create a version of this sketch that is as close in spirit to the original intent and original artistic vision as possible. One reviewer has noted that the text is hard to read. It is true that the resolution of the text that I was able to find from different sources is not as high as would be desired. I made efforts to enhance the text where it made sense even to the point of redrawing pixels in some cases. The result is that it looks nice and gives a good sense of the original, but please don't expect that it will be as clear to read as the original must have been.

The final amalgamation of image layers incorporates a mixture of French, German, English and Latin texts and fonts.

I am confident that this version of the famous NatureGemalde or Unity of Nature sketch of Alexander Von Humboldt is the truest replica that is currently available at an affordable price.

I settled on the 20" by 30" size as I felt it captured the feeling of the original size without becoming grainy based on the resolution of the images I was working with.

I have made it available as a poster first, but plan to offer other options such as giclee, canvas and aluminum prints. Please contact me if you are interested in obtaining a print in one of these formats.

The image of the complete sketch above is a low resolution version. The cropped segments show the actual resolution of the poster you will receive.

  • Order today to get by Nov 19-28
  • Returns & exchanges accepted within 30 days
  • Free shipping
  • Ships from: Brentwood, TN

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Daniel
LibertySpin ·

United States

We calculate this number using a recency-weighted average of all ratings, with a rating's value decreasing by half each year to best reflect the current experience. 4.7
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