Between fascination and science: Goethe and the atmosphere

In the final decades of the eighteenth century and the first decades of the nineteenth century, there was a phase of cultural effervescence in Europe that impacted the progress of philosophical and scientific thought. In addition to making their mark in their fields of knowledge, key figures in Western culture, such as Kant, Humboldt and Goethe, contributed greatly to the advancement of natural sciences, particularly atmospheric science. Goethe stands out for his work on barometric measurements, his knowledge of clouds and his ideas on the movement of the air. His justification of atmospheric dynamics based on internal causes of the Earth was quickly dismissed in light of the air physics discoveries taking place at the time. He was passionate about the shapes of clouds and the form of the sky, which he described and drew. His literary work is replete with references to the atmosphere. This study analyses the meteorological writings of Goethe, examining his contributions to the atmospheric sciences of his day and how his passion for the skies and clouds permeated his literary works. Goethe's relationship with the fields of meteorology and climate science is not well known, but his studies constituted a valuable contribution to the cultural and scientific context of the Europe that was taking shape at that time.