![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i3-cnrs.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/bertrand.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nLe D\u00e9tail du monde, L\u2019art perdu de la description de la nature<\/p>\n
Introduction to the discussion by Roman Sol\u00e9-Pomies<\/a><\/p>\n Back cover:<\/em> Les mots nous manquent pour dire le plus banal des paysages. Vite \u00e0 court de phrases, nous sommes incapables de faire le portrait d\u2019une or\u00e9e. Un pr\u00e9, d\u00e9j\u00e0, nous met \u00e0 la peine, que gr\u00ealent l\u2019aigremoine, le cirse et l\u2019ancolie. Il n\u2019en a pourtant pas toujours \u00e9t\u00e9 ainsi. Au temps de Goethe et de Humboldt, le r\u00eave d\u2019une \u00ab histoire naturelle \u00bb attentive \u00e0 tous les \u00eatres, sans restriction ni distinction aucune, s\u2019autorisait des forces combin\u00e9es de la science et de la litt\u00e9rature pour \u00e9lever la \u00ab peinture de paysage \u00bb au rang d\u2019un savoir crucial. La galaxie et le lichen, l\u2019enfant et le papillon voisinaient alors en paix dans un m\u00eame r\u00e9cit. Ce n\u2019est pas que l\u2019homme comptait peu : c\u2019est que tout comptait infiniment. Des croquis d\u2019Alfred Wallace aux \u00ab po\u00eames \u00bb de Francis Ponge, des bestiaires de William Swainson aux sonnets de Rainer Maria Rilke, ce livre donne \u00e0 entendre le chant, aussi tenace que t\u00e9nu, d\u2019un tr\u00e8s ancien savoir sur le monde \u2013 un savoir qui r\u00e9pertorie les \u00eatres par concordances de teintes et de textures, compose avec leurs lueurs des dictionnaires \u00e9ph\u00e9m\u00e8res, s\u2019ab\u00eeme et s\u2019apaise dans le spectacle de leurs m\u00e9tamorphoses.<\/p>\n Words fail us to describe the most banal of landscapes. Quickly running out of sentences, we are unable to depict a wood\u2019s edge. A meadow, already, is challenging, dotted with agrimony, cirse and columbine. However, it has not always been so. In the time of Goethe and Humboldt, the dream of a \u201cnatural history\u201d attentive to all beings, without restriction or distinction, used the combined forces of science and literature to elevate \u201clandscape painting\u201d to the rank of a crucial knowledge. Then, the galaxy and the lichen, the child and the butterfly neighbored in peace in the same story. It is not that man mattered little: it is that everything mattered infinitely. From Alfred Wallace\u2019s sketches to Francis Ponge\u2019s \u201cpro\u00eames\u201d, from William Swainson\u2019s bestiaries to Rainer Maria Rilke\u2019s sonnets, this book gives us the opportunity to hear the song, as tenacious as it is tenuous, of a very ancient knowledge of the world \u2013 a knowledge that lists beings by concordance of hues and textures, composes ephemeral dictionaries with their glimmers of light, and drifts away and calms down at the sight of their metamorphoses.<\/p>\n Romain Bertrand<\/strong>, Le D\u00e9tail du monde. L\u2019art perdu de la description de la nature<\/a>, Seuil, coll. l\u2019Univers Historique, 2019.<\/p>\n he Guest Seminar Series is organized collectively by the CSI PhD students. It is open upon registration.<\/p>\n Guest seminar programme<\/a><\/p>\n Registration: please fill out this form<\/a><\/p>\n Contact:\u00a0Carole-Anne Tisserand<\/a> or Abdoulaye Diaw<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n