Goethes Topfpflanzen

When I returned to Weimar in 2018 after many years, I took the opportunity to visit the Goethe residence. There were not many visitors on that day, so I was able to peruse at my leisure. On the way to the Christiane Rooms, I saw a custodian standing in the passageway, his back turned to me as he touched a plant standing on the window ledge, lost in thought. This small gesture became the trigger for associations that have since unfolded regarding the potted plants in this museum: Aren't the plants the only (visibly) living element in this arrangement, apart from the visitors and guards? An element that carries at least the potential for change and anti-rigidity? Does this not thereby lend them a fundamentally subversive, almost anarchistic status, as well as a kind of mobility, traveling through the rooms of the house according to human desire?

Goethe's residence currently holds an Opuntia monacantha (a species of cactus) in the foyer leading to the study, three bryophyllums (sprout leaf plant), two of them in the study and one in the Christiane Rooms, where there is also a Haemanthus albiflos (elephant's ear),a Begonia rex (king begonia), a Pelargonium crispum (lemon-scented geranium),a Passiflora (passion flower), as well as two Chlorophyten comosum (spider plant).

The tradition of trading in exotic plants extends far back, particularly in the households of the French and English aristocracy: as early as 1605, London was the meeting site for a congress of plant traders. By the late 18th century, the British company Veitch and Sons had expanded to become Europe’s largest nursery specializing in tropical plants. Like his competitors, James Veitch hired professional plant hunters, who took advantage of the colonial ambitions of the British Empire and other European states to gain access to areas of the world that had long been unknown to Europe and now had become targets of conquest. Motivated by the belief that the people, fauna and flora they encountered unquestionably belonged to those who discovered them, the hunters’ exploitation of the world for the benefit of a superior Western society knew no limits. Plant hunters sent home seeds, bulbs and tubers for propagation; wealthy collectors, in turn, were willing to pay enormous sums for rare plants. Eventually, this collection activity led to the endangerment of local species. Many wild orchids, cacti and palms were pushed to the brink of extinction, and some disappeared forever. This is part of the human activity that has shaped the Anthropocene era. The naturalist Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859), one of Goethe’s close correspondents, was already keenly aware of human-induced environmental destruction, which he described in regions of Latin America. Similar observations permeate the travelogue of Georg Forster (1754–1794), who participated on James Cook's second circumnavigation of the globe.

Some researchers locate the beginnings of our current age of humans in this early modern exchange of species between once largely isolated continents – and not in the industrialization of the 19th century. For geologists at University College London, 1610 marks the start of the Anthropocene: the introduction of diseases into the New World – via plants and animals, among other transmitters – and the colonization of indigenous peoples on the American continent led to the deaths of more than 50 million people within the timespan of just two generations, according to estimates. Due to this mass extinction, countless hectares of agricultural land lay fallow, causing a marked decrease in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by the early 17th century. Since this decline, the concentration has been rising continuously and lately at an ever-faster rate.

A seemingly banal invention from 1832 revolutionized the business of plant exchange: the Wardian case. With this apparatus, traders, hunters, researchers and botanists could ensure the survival of exotic plants during often brutal transoceanic journeys. The Wardian case is a “device for transporting and cultivating plants under otherwise unfavorable conditions. It consists of a flat metal painted base to which a metal frame holding glass plates is attached. The latter forms the walls and ceiling of the box. The base, whose rim is several inches high, is filled with soil, which is planted with seeds or seedlings and watered; then the box is completely closed. The plants flourish, for they are protected from dust and abrupt changes in temperature and provided with sufficient moisture, as the water can never evaporate.”^[1] Before this invention, the transportation of living plants often failed due to the harsh conditions of overseas shipping. While seed transport had already made possible the global exchange and the cultivation of new species, the ability to transport living specimens of new plants and keep them alive at their destinations with relatively little effort fundamentally transformed the quality and scale of the plant trade industry.^[2] The introduction of invasive species and plant diseases as well as the resulting destruction of entire ecosystems are only some of the catastrophic side effects of this invention.

In Central Europe, there is little evidence of a tradition of cultivating plants in living spaces until the 17th century. Until this period, the general standard of living was low and there was little awareness for the usefulness of plants in the home. The floral novelties from overseas were initially grown and displayed in botanical gardens and private court collections. With the advent of the bourgeois era at the end of the 18^th century and especially with the emergence of Biedermeier culture, which celebrated the ideal of the private sphere, tables for flowers became a popular feature of the salon. People began to conceive of nature as an element and appreciate the potential of plants as embellishments for domestic interiors and hence for life. Architectural reforms and the development of new techniques of glass production enabled the installation of larger windows, thus improving the supply of light in living rooms and allowing houseplants to thrive. By the end of the 19th century, the assortment of available plants for interiors included begonias, bush lilies, cyclamen and anthurium, as well as ornamental foliage plants such as ferns, spider plants, snake plants, ivy and rubber plants.

The architecture of the Bauhaus featured large, often floor-to-ceiling windows that allowed for a seamless transition from an interior into the garden and hence for a connection between indoor and outdoor spaces. Bauhaus architects therefore considered houseplants superfluous and generally did not account for them in their designs. After the relatively short period of the Bauhaus and with the end of the Second World War, the culture of indoor plants resurged. Wide windows with deep sills for flowerpot arrangements or even with built-in troughs for plants became popular architectural elements. Humans’ relationship to ornamental plants had now changed for good, as the desire to adorn homes with living, seemingly natural elements spread across socioeconomic classes. Since the 2010s, social media has helped popularize plants from earlier decades, though little attention is devoted to their origins or care needs. As a result of this commodification, the flower trade industry has reached gigantic proportions today. 

Most plant species kept as houseplants originate from tropical rainforests and surrounding areas. In this region of the world, the sun shines constantly for about twelve hours a day and rain falls regularly throughout the year. The average daily temperature depends on the respective altitude: in tropical forests below 600 meters, the temperature is relatively stable, ranging between 24 and 28 degrees Celsius during the whole year.

In addition to considering our responsibility towards plants with colonial histories, we must not ignore the broader ramifications of today’s flower and plant industry, which continues to perpetuate forces of colonial oppression on an economic level.  Plant industry workers in many countries of the global South have been forced to labor for decades under undignified, hazardous conditions. What’s more, the industry has wreaked ecological disaster on these workers’ communities, thus further trapping them in a spiral of dependency, poverty and exploitation.

Goethe engaged with the plant world through literature, art, science as well as horticulture. Under his influence, a whole trove of new plant types came to Weimar. His enthusiasm for the plant world was shared by the Duke Carl August, who, with Goethe’s encouragement, established a garden at the Belvedere; this garden was not organized systematically, but rather reflected both men’s specific botanical interests. There, Goethe became acquainted in 1817 with a plant Bryophyllum calycinum – popularly known as the sprout, or miracle, leaf – which came from Calcutta and was probably sent to Weimar via London and Hanover. He took cuttings of this plant home with him, where he observed and researched them for many years. The sprout leaf plant became particularly important for his ideas about the metamorphosis of plants. Above all, Goethe was fascinated by the plant’s growth and means of reproduction: new buds emerge from the leaf, no matter if this is still attached to the stem or lies separated from the plant on soil. In 1820, Goethe wrote to the botanist Nees von Esenbeck: “It is quite strange how this plant modifies itself in an instant under changing circumstances and displays its omnipotent nature in the most wondrous way by tolerating and yielding, as well as sometimes by audaciously shooting forth. No one understands better than you why I am passionately devoted to this creature.”^[3] For Goethe, the sprout leaf was not only scientifically important, but also symbolized ever-rejuvenating friendship and served as a memento of affection. Goethe sent cuttings of the plant to numerous friends, such as the actress Marianne von Willemer, along with poetry verses about its growth and care.

In the 1990s, the Klassik Stiftung drafted a plant policy for the interiors of some of its museums based on the question, which plants likely stood where during the Goethe era? What makes sense where? A ceramist was commissioned to manufacture pots based on specifications from Goethe’s lifetime: Which pot shape and which pot material allows which plant to thrive best? Additionally, an employee was hired on a part-time basis to care for the indoor plants in the museums of the Stiftung.

The installation Goethe's Topfpflanzen brings together for the first time the plants currently housed in Goethe’s residence and interrogates their existence and origins. They are no longer Goethe's sprout leaves, cacti and spider plants, but rather museum specimens. This is an homage to them.

This text is composed of artistic research and has no claim to the truth. ©Sonya Schönberger www.sonyaschoenberger.de

^[1] “Wardscher Kasten,” in: Meyers Konversationslexikon, 4th ed., vol. 16 (1890), p. 389.

^[2] See Luke Keogh: The Wardian Case: How a Simple Box Moved Plants and Changed the World, Chicago 2020.

^[3] Johann Wolfgang von Goethe to Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck, 23 July 1820, in: Goethes Werke, ed. Großherzogin Sophie von Sachsen, vol. 33, Weimar 1905, pp. 125-127.