Tiempo moderno y tiempo del Antropoceno en la lámina V de Vues des Cordillères

Abstract

The article offers an interpretation of the fifth plate of Vues des Cordillères (1810) as an assemblage where two tempos cohabit: the modern time of labor and hierarchy (carrier/borne dialectic; up/down metaphor) and the deep time of botanical, climatic and geological processes (plant geography; mountain physiognomy). Through a triangulated reading of plate, description and travel diaries, supported by heuristic comparative panels, it shows how Humboldt articulates nature and culture in 1801–1810, yet later 19th/20th-century reuses fracture this unity (human “type” vs. landscape). The plate thus becomes a visual knot to think – without teleology – the crossing of the modern regime of historicity and the Anthropocene era.