Carl Ritter - The Last Word

Carl Ritter was not an "arm chair geographer".  The last few weeks I have been researching a famous geographer and it occurred to me today during a presentation I conducted on him, that he is falsely accused.  Yes, from what I have learned he did spent a lot of time looking over works of others only to build hypothesis of his own.  Is it really fair to claim he was an arm chair geographer though?

The Man Carl Ritter (Image Received from luise-berlin.de) 

Texts written about the man describe his ability to see places he has never been in vivid detail.  When it came to describing places he has seen he often lacked similar great detail.  It seems his mind worked much like an artist.  He could see images before he physically produced him.  At this time, the study of geography was crawling out of the classical stage and this vision he produced in his head and taught helped forge the way towards the birth of modern geography.

Alexander von Humboldt, a prominent name in the history of science, was incredibly detail oriented.  He studied things and places at extremely small scales and based his explorations on details.  Ritter on the other hand was opposite.  These small details hey found interesting, but what he found even more powerful was the larger scale.  Something called "comparative geography".

To get to the point so I don't bore everyone with a history lesson, I with confidence claim that "Although he spent a lot of time working away lost in literature behind his desk (most likely in an arm chair), Carl Ritter was not just an arm chair geographer".  I would argue time spent in his office wasn't time in his office at all, instead it was a place to go in order for him to travel the world.  Getting lost in the works of others allowed him to discover things those before him had missed, which led to the discovery of more.  He found details on the fringes and created a new type of vision.  Ritter would fill lecture halls with 100's of students year after year.  It is described, he would use the chalkboard like a canvas and his ideas would flow.

So why does this matter? Honestly I have no idea.  I think an interesting point about Ritter is that he had relatively few predecessors who continued his style.  Why, a man with such amazing esteem, could no one follow directly in his footsteps?  I believe no one could.  It seemed his mind worked in ways no one could follow 100% of the time.  Unlike Humboldt, who developed tools and methods for his trade followers could learn, Ritter's ideas were mental.  How could a student learn to paint vivid images in there head?  I feel this is a trait you must learn and create on your own.

Seeing more (Image Received From Google Images)

This man, Carl Ritter reminds me of a very influential person in my life, perhaps the reason I felt compelled to explore this a bit further.  Cheers to anyone who made it through this!

Everyone else more exciting posts on the way.....

Maybe some epic powder skiing shots....cough cough aaron

Yee haw,

Kyle