Deutsch-indische Figurationen : der bildhafte Stil der Ethnographie um 1800

The German indophilia between 1790 and 1820 is an impressive example for the contemporary project of an encompassing and relational historiography of mankind. India became an important reference point within the process of German cultural self-assurance and positioning. Here, especially pictures, drawings and poetic forms of expression played a crucial role and they clarify a pictorial style of early German ethnography itself. This article’s detailed analysis of ethnographic pictures of India illuminates a figurative and relational entanglement between Indian and European contexts. The visual practices of cutting, pasting and transferring shed light on colonial structures, political exchange and identity politics. Within these tense figurations the ethnographic picture composes a particular knowledge, which centrally relies on visualized categories that have to be ‘typical’, ‘ideal’, and ‘characteristic’. Hence, early ethnography has to be understood as both a text-picture-genre and a research activity.