«A traveller’s tales»: prassi disegnativa e teorie estetiche di Solomon Caesar Malan

Abstract

This article aims to investigate the figure of Solomon Caesar Malan (1812‑94) from a sole art-historical perspective. Malan was a linguist and theologian of the first rank and undertook many journeys between Europe and Asia to deepen his knowledge of languages. These journeys were documented by him with a collection of around 1,600 sketches and watercolours, assembled in ten albums. The observation of Malan’s travel drawings and the combined reading of his Aphorisms on Drawing, published in 1856, reveal a personality who was deeply immersed in the critical debate of his time, with a modern and personal conception of art, expressed first on a practical level and then on a theoretical level, but continuously inspired by a profound spirituality.