In two 1955 radio talks, Adolf Portmann moves from flowers and childhood wonder to the history of botany, insect color perception and the relationship between living form and biological processes. His exploration of spider webs examines inherited behavior, silk construction and drug experiments, asking what outward activity can reveal about an animal’s hidden inner life.
Adolf Portmann — 2 recordings in the archive.
Related reading: Animal Forms and Patterns by Adolf Portmann.
Dear listeners, after the great outburst of spring green, May brings us the delight of flowers. We can never take the wonder of blossoms deeply enough into ourselves. So today let us spend a little time considering what flowers mean in the natural scientist's world. May I begin with my own early experiences? Perhaps they will remind you of similar ones. Year after year, even before I started school, it was a great event for me when the tulips opened, when a simple tulip unfolded its radiant beauty. I gazed at this color given form, absorbed and silent, and could never get enough of the silky sheen of its petals or the grace of its lines. Later, when I sometimes carried a single tulip to school for drawing lessons, I would eagerly await the moment when I could try, and was allowed to try, to reproduce that red or yellow and those lines as well as I could. An iris brought different delights, certainly no less intense. White narcissi brought others again, reminding me of our little windmills. Do not think, dear listeners, that I am digressing and that this has nothing to do with natural science. It has a great deal to do with it. For the power of the feelings and impressions aroused by natural forms is the foundation of every full and effective relationship with the nature in which we live. About three decades ago, when the artistic movement now generally called Surrealism emerged and gave rise to a powerful renewal of artistic creation, its leading figures particularly emphasized that we could all, to some extent, be artists and explorers: that within each of us, seeds of creative activity await stimulation. The early wonder and admiration of childhood, when we are so receptive, are a source of mature creativity. Let us now take a walk through the domain of flower research. For thousands upon thousands of years, for as long as human beings have existed, flowers have bloomed without becoming objects of scientific thought. The experience of generations had, of course, discovered mysterious powers in blossoms and used them for healing. Today countless people find relief through heart medicines produced by our great pharmaceutical centers. Some may even owe their lives to them. They also owe this to the early recognition of such effects in the flowers of the foxglove. The same is true of the important…