For me, the younger crowd has always been more difficult to draw, since they usually aren’t inclined to sitting still lol. But, I could stand to be humbled now and then anyway, so I endeavor to keep drawing *everyone*, all ages included.
This morning's sunrise was breathtaking....😍🥰 Have a wonderful day and while yeah, it's Valentine's Day and it can be hard on us single folk, just use the day to love yourself that bit extra 💛
“Descending the subway stairs / in a crowd of others, slow / steps, everyone a little / hunched in their coats, probably / as unhappy as I was / to have to go to work.”
—Matthew Rohrer, first lines from The Others (Wave Books, 2017), featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine
I thought it only appropriate for the first post on this blog to be about polymathic's namesake inspiration: Alexander von Humboldt. If you were to look up the definition of the word "polymath" in the dictionary, you would see that it means "a person of encyclopedic learning" which, of course, is technically correct but it lacks, I think, the nuance behind it.
Another more common way to refer to someone as a polymath is to call them a Renaissance man or woman or even a jack-of-all-trades. These terms also, in my estimation, don't fully encapsulate the spirit of the concept but looking at von Humboldt's life I think is a much better way to understand what a polymath is both in definition and in spirit.
Born Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt in Berlin, Germany on September 14th, 1769 to an aristocratic family, Alexander and his older brother, Wilhelm, grew up receiving the best education that could be had at the time instead of receiving much parental love and affection. Their father died when they were both young and their mother, instead of rearing and supporting them, placed them under the tutelage (and alternative supervision) of a plethora of Enlightenment thinkers.
Despite feeling behind Wilhelm (two years his senior) during their studies as children, in adulthood Alexander came to be an incredibly popular and well-respected figure worldwide in the 1820s through till his death on May 6th, 1859 at eighty-nine years old. He traveled to four continents, making friends and connections along the way and writing more than thirty-six books and some 25,000 letters. A lifelong abolitionist who was also outspoken about the mistreatment of indigenous populations in the Americas and who defended the idea that knowledge was for everyone made Alexander unpopular in certain circles, but even though he held these controversial and divisive beliefs, there was a great outpouring of grief over his passing felt across the globe.
At thirty-one, he delivered a series of lectures that in turn spurred the creation of his magnum opus - Kosmos (published in English as Cosmos: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe). This work became a national bestseller. Alexander had an extroverted and exuberant personality, calling coffee "concentrated sunbeams", and so while some found him annoying, most found him charming and deeply fascinating. He certainly could sell a book or two and fill up lecture halls so even if perhaps his sarcasm and high-energy were at times off-putting, it clearly wasn't enough for people to write him off entirely.
Institutions everywhere clamored for him to come speak or, better yet, join their ranks and his life and influence even was part of the inspiration for one of the world's leading museums and institutions - the Smithsonian.
Alexander von Humboldt's life was filled with adventure, discovery, and communal learning and he contributed to a number of fields of study as well as developed numerous new theories. He challenged what we knew about the earth and how it worked. He challenged how systems were set up where they only favored certain groups of people. He challenged the limits of the body and mind. Of all the things that Alexander von Humboldt accomplished in his life, I think one of his most important contributions was to inspire and remind the world to be curious about any and everything and to never limit oneself.
If you find yourself thinking a lot about something, look into it. Learn however you can. Read. Watch. Do. Knowledge is for everyone and the ability to be a polymath is not limited to anything other than your curiosity. Von Humboldt has been gone for a long time now, but he lives on through the people who continue to explore and to ask questions.
Pictured:
(Left) Sketch of Alexander von Humboldt (1807, Berlin)
(Right) Portrait of Alexander von Humboldt - Joseph Karl Stieler (1843)
Resources for further study:
The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World by Andrea Wulf (2015, Vintage Books)
"Who was Alexander von Humboldt?" by Eleanor Jones Harvey for Smithsonian Magazine (2020)
