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the-confidence-man-1857

The Confidence-Man (1857) Jan 24, 2017 "The relevant book about Trump’s American forebear is Herman Melville’s ‘The Confidence-Man,’ the darkly pessimistic, daringly inventive novel — Melville’s last — that could just as well have been called ‘The Art of the Scam’”. So wrote the author Philip Roth in a recent email exchange with the New Yorker. Published on the day it is set, April Fool's Day 1857, The Confidence-Man concerns a group of passengers travelling the Mississippi by steamboat (aptly named the Fidèle) and their various onboard encounters with an enigmatic conman figure (who appears throughout in a variety of disguises). Poorly received at the time of its first publication, The Confidence-Man was indeed Melville's last novel — he would thereafter turn to poetry and resumed prose fiction only much later in 1885 with the commencement of the unfinished Billy Budd, Sailor. Though largely misunderstood in the mid-19th century, the novel and its central message — that the art of the con lies at the heart of American society — began to garner more appreciation and salience as the decades rolled on. Orson Welles was said to have wanted to make it his first film, before eventually settling for Citizen Kane (another story relevant for Trump perhaps). With recent developments in politics in the US and beyond, Melville's tale is overdue a revisit.

public-domain-review

Jan 24, 2017

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2024-05-01T21:44:43.679341

the-city-of-truth-or-ethics-1609

The City of Truth, or, Ethics (1609) Feb 1, 2017 Published in Paris at the beginning of the 17th century by Ambroise and Jérôme Drouart, Civitas Veri sive Morum (The City of Truth; or, Ethics) presents an allegorical poem by Bartolomeo Del Bene (1515-1595) — a reworking of Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics — adorned with a series of wonderful emblem illustrations (most of which we feature below). The excellent Spamula blog sums up Del Bene's poem thus: It describes a month-long spiritual journey undertaken by his patroness, Marguerite, Duchess of Savoy, who travels through the City of Truth, from its five portals (one for each of the senses) through its various palaces, gardens, etc., to the five temples at its heart, culminating in visits to the Temple of Intelligence (where she meets and converses with Aristotle himself) and the Temple of Wisdom. As for the engravings, it is not certain whether they were an original addition by the publisher or whether they were copied from Del Bene's manuscript itself. Likewise the identity of the artist behind them is also unknown. Spamula notes the title page to be designed by Dutch artist Thomas de Leu so it is possible he could be behind the images too, though a certain Théodore Galle is also touted as a possibility. Riffing off Aristotle's ideas, the detailed images present "huge imaginary utopias and dystopias", each designed to generate moral allegories in the emblem tradition.

public-domain-review

Feb 1, 2017

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2024-05-01T21:44:44.171042

chirologia-or-the-natural-language-of-the-hand-1644

Chirologia, or The Natural Language of the Hand (1644) Nov 23, 2016 Is gesture a universal language? When lost for words, we point, wave, motion and otherwise use our hands to attempt to indicate meaning. However, much of this form of communication is intuitive and is not generally seen to be, by itself, an effective substitution for speech. John Bulwer (1606 – 1656), an English doctor and philosopher, attempted to record the vocabulary contained in hand gestures and bodily motions and, in 1644, published Chirologia, or the Naturall Language of the Hand alongside a companion text Chironomia, or the Art of Manual Rhetoric, an illustrated collection of hand and finger gestures that were intended for an orator to memorise and perform whilst speaking. For Bulwer, gesture was the only from of speech that was inherently natural to mankind, and he saw it as a language with expressions as definable as written words. He describes some recognisable hand gestures, such as stretching out hands as an expression of entreaty or wringing them to convey grief, alongside more unusual movements, including pretending to wash your hands as a way to protest innocence, and to clasp the right fist in the left palm as a way to insult your opponent during an argument. Although Bulwer’s theory has its roots in classical civilisation, from the works of Aristotle, he was inspired by hundreds of different works, including biblical verses, medical texts, histories, poems and orations, in order to demonstrate his conclusions. The language of gesture proved a popular subject in the age of eloquence, and inspired many similar works. Bulwer’s work was primarily meant for the pulpit, but also had applications for the stage. Although we do not know if these hand gestures were ever used by public speakers as they were intended, there is some evidence of the book’s impact on popular culture. Laurence Sterne’s novel Tristram Shandy (completed in 1767) features characters who clasp their hands together in the heat of argument, one who dramatically holds his left index finger between his right thumb and forefinger to signal a dispute, and another who folds his hands as a gesture of idleness. This was not the end for the Chirologia, however. Some years after publishing the book, Bulwer became one of the first people in England to propose educating deaf people. Although the link to deaf studies seems evident, the Chirologia only makes passing reference to deafness, but this nevertheless may have inspired Bulwer’s further research in the area, and how fingerspelling and gesture can be used as a form of communication in themselves.

public-domain-review

Nov 23, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:44:44.639474

class-of-2017

Class of 2017 Dec 6, 2016 Pictured above is our top pick of those whose works will, on 1st January 2017, enter the public domain in many countries around the world. Of the eleven featured, five will be entering the public domain in countries with a "life plus 70 years" copyright term (e.g. most European Union members, Brazil, Israel, Nigeria, Russia, Turkey, etc.) and six in countries with a "life plus 50 years" copyright term (e.g. Canada, New Zealand, and many countries in Asia and Africa) — those that died in the year 1946 and 1966 respectively. As always it's a varied gaggle who've assembled for our graduation photo, including the founder of the Surrealist movement, a star of the silent film era, the Japanese author behind the popularisation of Buddhism in the West, two female writers at the heart of the Modernist scene, and one of the "fathers of science fiction". Below is a little bit more about each of their lives (with each name linking through to their respective Wikipedia pages, from which each text has been based). H. G. Wells (1866–1946) Although prolific in many literary fields, Wells is now best remembered for his groundbreaking science fiction novels (what he termed "scientific romances") and is often cited as one of the key founding fathers of the genre. Some of his most famous works include The Time Machine (1895), The Invisible Man (1897), and The War of the Worlds (1898). With their radical future visions and alternative realities made plausible by their rooting in science, Wells' books have had a huge impact on the way we envisage (and indeed perhaps shape) our future. As well as the excitement of the fantastical elements, Wells' writing contained also often a moral dimension, and from an early stage in his career he was an outspoken advocate of socialism, his later works becoming increasingly political. Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Stein moved to Paris in 1903 where she became an influential cultural figure at the heart of the Modernist movement -- through her experimental writings, her impressive art collection, and her salons which hosted the leading cultural lights of the early twentieth century, including the likes of Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, and Henri Matisse. Although the main body of her literary output was deemed too radical for popular success, her "memoir" of the Paris years, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, written in the voice of her life partner, Alice B. Toklas, was a bestseller and propelled Stein from the obscurity of a cult literary scene into the limelight of mainstream attention. A lesbian, Stein was the author of one of the earliest coming out stories "Q.E.D", originally written in 1903, and her essay "Miss Furr and Miss Skeene" is often considered to contain the first published use of the word "gay" (which it uses over one hundred times) in reference to same-sex relationships and those who have them. André Breton (1896–1966) A writer, poet, anarchist and anti-fascist, Breton is perhaps best known for his role in founding the Surrealist movement, being the author of the first Surrealist Manifesto (Manifeste du surréalisme) of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism". In addition to his important literary output, Breton was an avid collector of art, ethnographic material, and varied curios. Particularly drawn to objects from the northwest coast of North America, Breton's collection grew to more than 5,000 items: modern paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, books, art catalogs, journals, manuscripts, and works of popular and Oceanic art. Buster Keaton (1895–1966) Born into a vaudeville family in Piqua, Kansas, Keaton became one of the most important figures of the silent film era. An actor, director, producer, writer, and stunt performer, he is best known for his peculiar brand of physical comedy, with his consistently stoic, deadpan expression, which earned him the nickname "The Great Stone Face". Of all his films The General (1926) has won the highest praise, Orson Welles stating that it was cinema's highest achievement in comedy, and perhaps the greatest film ever made. Critic Roger Ebert called Keaton "arguably, the greatest actor-director in the history of the movies". Frank O'Hara (1926–1966) A curator at the Museum of Modern Art, O'Hara became prominent in New York City's art world, and a leading figure in the "New York School" — an informal group of artists, writers and musicians who drew inspiration from jazz, surrealism, abstract expressionism, action painting and contemporary avant-garde art movements. A prolific poet, O'Hara's approach veered away from the overly academic and overwrought forms of more traditional poetry, celebrating instead a more immediate and spontaneous orientation. In 1959, in Personism: A Manifesto, he explained his position on formal structure: "I don't ... like rhythm, assonance, all that stuff. You just go on your nerve. If someone's chasing you down the street with a knife you just run, you don't turn around and shout, 'Give it up! I was a track star for Mineola Prep.'" In the early morning hours of July 24th 1966, O'Hara was struck by a jeep on Fire Island beach, after the taxi in which he had been riding broke down in the dark. He died the next day of a ruptured liver. Paul Nash (1889–1946) Among the most important landscape artists of the first half of the twentieth century, Nash was a British surrealist painter and war artist who played a key role in the development of Modernism in English art. His distinctive renderings of the frontline during the First World War remain some of the period's most iconic images, and after the war Nash continued to focus on landscape painting. Originally continuing his formalized, decorative style, as the 30s progressed, he became increasingly abstract and surreal. László Moholy-Nagy (1895–1946) Born as László Weisz to a Jewish family in Hungary, Moholy-Nagy was an artist of diverse interests — becoming proficient and innovative in the fields of photography, typography, sculpture, painting, printmaking, and industrial design — as well as an influential professor in the Bauhaus school. Highly influenced by constructivism and a strong advocate of the integration of technology and industry into the arts, perhaps his most enduring achievement was the construction of the "Lichtrequisit einer elektrischen Bühne" (Light Prop for an Electric Stage), completed in 1930 — a device with moving parts meant to have light projected through it in order to create mobile light reflections and shadows on nearby surfaces. Mina Loy (1882–1966) Born Mina Gertrude Löwy, Loy was a British artist, poet, playwright, novelist, futurist, feminist, and general all-round bohemian — perhaps best known today for penning the Feminist Manifesto, written in 1914 while living in an expatriate community in Florence, Italy. Her poetic output drew a whole host of famous admirers including T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Basil Bunting, Gertrude Stein, and Francis Picabia. D. T. Suzuki (1870–1966) The author of some of the most celebrated introductions and overall examinations of Buddhism, particularly of the Zen school, Suzuki was instrumental in spreading interest in Zen (and Far Eastern philosophy in general) to the West. He spent several lengthy stretches teaching or lecturing at Western universities — including Columbia University from 1952 to 1957 — and was also a prolific translator of Chinese, Japanese, and Sanskrit literature. His work in this field earned him a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1963, although it has been later revealed that he may have expressed Nazi sympathies during the 30s. Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946) Stieglitz was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his fifty-year career in making photography an accepted art form. In addition to his photography, Stieglitz was known for the New York art galleries that he ran in the early part of the twentieth century, where he introduced many avant-garde European artists to the U.S, as well as being the husband to painter Georgia O'Keeffe. Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966) Primarily known as a writer of novels, biographies and travel books, Waugh was also a prolific journalist and reviewer of books. His most famous works include the early satires Decline and Fall (1928) and A Handful of Dust (1934), the novel Brideshead Revisited (1945) and the Second World War trilogy Sword of Honour (1952–61). Waugh is recognised as one of the great prose stylists of the English language in the twentieth century, the critic Clive James commenting that "Nobody ever wrote a more unaffectedly elegant English... its hundreds of years of steady development culminate in him". And a few others that didn't make it to the class photo.... Walt Disney W. C. Fields Lenny Bruce C. S. Forester Pauline Boty Some people you think we've missed? Please let us know in the comments! To learn more about Public Domain Day visit publicdomainday.org. For more names whose works will be going into the public domain in 2017 see the Wikipedia pages on 1946 and 1966 deaths (which you can fine-tune down to writers and artists), and also this dedicated page. Wondering what will enter the public domain through copyright expiration in the U.S.? Like last year, and the year before...Nothing (apart from unpublished works whose authors died in 1946). Wondering if "bad things happen to works when they enter the public domain"? Wonder no more. (Learn more about the situation in the U.S. and why the public domain is important in this article in Huff Post Books and this from the Duke Law School's Centre for the Study of the Public Domain).

public-domain-review

Dec 6, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:44:45.098066

forty-four-turkish-fairy-tales-1913

Forty-Four Turkish Fairy Tales (1913) Dec 13, 2016 The most famous collectors of folk stories remain, at least in the West, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, but many others followed in their influential wake. Among them was Ignác Kúnos (1860-1945), who compiled this volume of Turkish fairytales in the same tradition. A Hungarian-born linguist, Kúnos also had an interest in the Turkish dialect and folk tradition, and collected several volumes of oral fairytales, not through reading and study, but by travelling around the Turkish country and listening to storytellers. In this elaborately produced volume, beautifully illustrated by Willy Pogany, Kúnos describes the stories as being closer to the fairytales of European tradition than those in Arabian Nights, seeking to dissuade his readers of any notion of Orientalism. However, the fact that these tales are thematically similar to their Western counterparts — containing stories of princesses and dragons, witches and white horses, heroes and villains — should not be surprising to any frequent reader of fairytales. They are so often, in some way, international. One striking element of these tales from Turkey is the frequent presence of the over-sized supernatural beings referred to as "Dews" (or on occasion simply "Arabs"!) — known elsewhere in Islamic folklore as "Devis" or "Jin" (Europeanized as "Genie"). With their towering form their closest cognate in the European tradition would be the figure of the giant, with some fairy-like elements thrown in for good measure. Like giants they are normally malevolent towards humans, but are sometimes friendly and helpful. From the Preface: The fairyland of the Turks is approached by a threefold road, in most cases the realm can be reached only on the back of a Pegasus, or by the aid of the peris. One must either ascend to the seventh sphere above the earth by the help of the anka-bird, or descend to the seventh sphere below the earth by the help of a dew. A multitude of serais and kiosks are at the disposal of the heroes of the tales ,- thousands of birds of gayest plumage warble their tuneful lays, and in the flower-gardens the most wonderful odours intoxicate the senses.

public-domain-review

Dec 13, 2016

collection

2024-05-01T21:44:45.604837

despotism-1946

Despotism (1946) Feb 2, 2017 "You can roughly locate any community in the world somewhere along a scale running all the way from democracy to despotism", so begins this short from Encyclopaedia Britannica Films, published a year after the end of the Second World War. The film goes on to illustrate (with some wonderful graphics, archive clips, and reconstructions) the idea that despotism has two chief characteristics — restricted respect and concentrated power. A community is low on a respect scale if common courtesy is withheld from large groups of people on account of their political attitudes; if people are rude to others because they think their wealth and position gives them that right, or because they don't like a man's race or his religion. It also identifies two of the conditions which have historically promoted the growth of despotism — a slanted economic distribution and a strict control of the agencies of communication. One commenter on the Internet Archive has this quite salient point to make: A very interesting film that has one major flaw. Distraction rather than control is the key to the Despotism of Huxley's "Brave New World". The information scale is pushed through the roof to the point of trivialization which paradoxically results in the *quality* of the information going through the floor. Critical thinking is crippled not so much by control but by overload. See its companion film Democracy, released a year earlier, here. And here's some further reading in the form of Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism.

public-domain-review

Feb 2, 2017

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2024-05-01T21:44:46.092682

the-living-photographs-of-mole-and-thomas

The “Living Photographs” of Mole and Thomas Jan 5, 2017 In search of some eye-catching imagery to boost morale surrounding US involvement in WWI, the US military commissioned the English-born photographer Arthur Mole and his assistant John Thomas to make a series of extraordinary group portraits. Between 1915 and 1921, with the dutiful help of thousands of servicemen and staff from various US military camps, the duo produced around thirty of the highly patriotic images, which Mole labelled "living photographs". As one might imagine, the creation of each photograph was somewhat of a military exercise in itself, taking a week or more to prepare. Firstly, the desired image would be traced with wire onto a glass plate mounted to Mole's camera, which he would then take to the top of an 80 foot high viewing tower. Looking through the template, armed with a megaphone and large pointing stick, Mole would then oversee the laborious nailing down of miles and miles of lace edging, tracing out the pattern. The next stage was fairly straight forward, the servicemen would then simply need to fill the design. Making use of anamorphic perspective, the images would not make much sense from overhead or on the ground, but only become intelligible at one particular vantage point — where Mole would be positioned atop his tower with his 11 x 14-inch view camera. This would make for some wonderful skewing of numbers, and itself, acts as a great example of perspective at work. The Statue of Liberty image, for example, required a total of 18,000 men: just 17 at the base but, more than half a mile away, 12,000 in the torch. Sadly it seems no one thought to fly a photographer overhead and capture what would have been a wonderfully skewed vision of Liberty, with enormous bulging torch and minuscule feet. While the logic in Mole calling them "living photographs" is self-evident, in another important sense it's also somewhat of a misnomer, as Louis Kaplan notes in an article for Cabinet: From the photographer’s perspective, the emblems are brought to life by means of the living soldiers who embody them. But one can also look at these images from the opposite perspective: we deaden the human beings into form and formation by making them into emblems. The emblem only comes into focus when the living element drops out of the group portrait in these spectacular optical illusions. This total subjection of the individual to the symbolic order also exposes the fascistic tendency inherent in such images. Mole’s “living photographs” thinly disguise the forces of death that in fact adhere to all community.

public-domain-review

Jan 5, 2017

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2024-05-01T21:44:46.570011

walter-crane-s-painting-book-1889

Walter Crane’s Painting Book (1889) Nov 16, 2016 Long before the current craze for adult colouring books came this 19th-century "painting book" from one of the finest contributors to the Golden Age of illustration: Walter Crane (1845 -1915). Although remembered chiefly as an influential children’s book illustrator, Crane resisted this reputation throughout his life. A member of the Arts and Crafts movement, he also designed textiles, stained glass, wallpaper and ceramics, alongside several large allegorical paintings. Although his work was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1862, many other paintings he submitted were poorly received or never displayed, possibly because of his socialist leanings. He gave up sending his paintings to the Academy in 1877. Instead, he turned his attention to children’s books, although was never quite able resist his higher artistic calling — as his designs and book illustrations attest. Teasingly referred to as the "academician of the nursery", Crane began illustrating fairy tales with the same attention to detail as the paintings he had formally sent to the Academy. His efforts changed public attitudes towards children’s books, which had previously been simple, inexpensive paperbacks before Crane turned his attention to them. His illustrations incorporated carefully rendered textiles, clothing, furniture designs, and patterns inspired by Japanese art and printmaking. Crane himself acknowledged that he used these picture books as a vehicle for his other ideas about furniture and decoration. Crane achieved further commercial success through adapting his illustrations in a painting book. Originally published in 1880, the outline illustrations were accompanied by a full colour rendering on the opposite page. Although he had to sacrifice some of the intricacies of his original illustrations, the painting books Crane produced still offered a challenge to the budding young artist, with his own colour plates acting as a guide. (See a coloured in copy here.) The elaborate and complex designs Crane created are strikingly similar to the colouring books that are designed for adults today. Although Crane achieved fame and recognition as a children’s illustrator, he continued to devote himself to his other artistic interests throughout his life. A photograph of his studio from 1885 (see below) depicts watercolours, oil paintings, sculpture and other design work, revealing a polymath who poured his varying talents into illustrations, which had a transformative effect on the art in children’s books.

public-domain-review

Nov 16, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:44:47.007482

the-frog-1908

The Frog (1908) Dec 1, 2016 A film by the pioneering Spanish film director and cinematographer Segundo Chomón. With his innovative use of early splice-based tricks and a penchant for optical illusions he is often compared to the slightly earlier Georges Méliès, and indeed has been dubbed "The Spanish Méliès" by some. Though the similarities are clear, Chomón departs from Méliès in his variety of subjects and his use of animation, an art form he played a key role in developing. In this surreal short a sprightly frog circles various come-to-life fountain tableaux, as well as a giant version of itself, an enormous head being drenched by water, and some multicoloured fire thrown in for good measure.

public-domain-review

Dec 1, 2016

collection

2024-05-01T21:44:47.469854

the-strange-adventures-of-a-pebble-1921

The Strange Adventures of a Pebble (1921) Feb 28, 2017 I’ve been through fire and water, I tell you! From my earliest pebblehood the wildest things you could imagine have been happening to this world of ours, and I have been right in the midst of them. So begins Hallam Hawksworth’s The Strange Adventures of a Pebble. Written in the 1920s, the book was part of a series which also included The Adventures of a Grain of Dust and A Year in the Wonderland of Trees, all of which were supposed to introduce children to the world of Natural Sciences. In each of them, Hawksworth personifies the natural object he is exploring, and using a mixture of folk tales, scientific facts and colloquial, friendly explanations guides the reader through the history of the natural world. It’s a real thrill of a ride, dramatizing the life cycle of supposedly dull things. The Adventures of a Grain of Dust begins even more loudly than Pebble: I don't want you to think that I'm boasting, but I do believe I'm one of the greatest travellers that ever was; and if anybody, living or dead, has ever gone through with more than I have I'd like to hear about it. Hallam Hawksworth was the pen-name of teacher Francis Blake Atkinson. He was married to the author Eleanor Stackhouse Atkinson, author of the children’s classic Greyfriars Bobby, which was based on the (supposedly) true story of a Scottish dog who spent fourteen years guarding his masters grave. The couple were both committed to education and published a weekly magazine for Chicago high school students called The Little Chronicle, as well as working for Encyclopaedia companies later in life.

public-domain-review

Feb 28, 2017

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2024-05-01T21:44:47.952178

marcus-selmer-s-photographs-of-19th-century-norwegians

Marcus Selmer’s Photographs of 19th-Century Norwegians Mar 1, 2017 It is not immediately clear what drew Marcus Selmer (1819 – 1900), a Danish portrait photographer, to spend most of his life working in Norway. He trained as a pharmacist in his native Denmark, and was working in a chemist owned by his uncle when he discovered daguerreotype photography. He experimented with this new technology in his spare time and began sending his pictures in to local exhibitions. In 1852, Selmer travelled to Norway, to visit some of his uncle’s family in the city of Bergen. He never returned. He soon found work as a photographer in Bergen and, within a year, was able to establish his own studio. This became the first permanent photographic studio in Bergen, as few photographers who visited would stay all year round. Photographers often visited Bergen in the summer, hoping to capture the fjords and mountains that surround the area, but, as they needed good light for their work, the dark and cold weather had driven most of them away by the time winter rolled around. Selmer ingeniously built his studio almost entirely out of glass, allowing enough light into the space, which enabled him to continue working throughout the year. Selmer’s work quickly became well-known throughout Norway. He sold many books of his photographs, and sold individual images to the press and the burgeoning tourist industry, before eventually being appointed the royal photographer in 1880. Although his career was varied, Selmer is primarily remembered today for his portraits of local people in national folk costume, as shown here. These photographs depict the customs, traditions and culture of the Norwegian people, and reflect Selmer’s interest in his adopted home. One of Selmer’s most notable portraits is of a local folk hero named Ole Storviken. Storviken had once been a prosperous fisherman who fell into drunkenness and despair and spent decades wandering the Norwegian countryside. In the popular imagination, he became associated with the trolls and fairies of Norwegian legend, and tales that surround him refer to him as the strongest man in Norway. Storviken died just outside of Bergen in 1863, just a few years after Selmer took his photograph. Selmer’s long career spanned almost half a century, and it can be assumed he took many thousands of photographs during this time. However, as much of his negative archive was destroyed after his death, only a handful of his daguerreotypes remain. Below we feature some of the most striking of these, beautifully coloured by hand, now in the collection of the National Library of Norway.

public-domain-review

Mar 1, 2017

collection

2024-05-01T21:44:48.409074

maniac-chase-1904

Maniac Chase (1904) Mar 9, 2017 This 1904 short from Edison Studios, directed by Edwin S. Porter, is a near shot-by-shot remake of Biograph's The Escaped Lunatic released earlier that year (Edison resorted to pretty desperate measures to try and keep the competition at bay). Biograph's film was most likely the very first time the "Napoleon delusion" trope — in which a mentally ill person believes themself to be Napoleon Bonaparte — is seen on the screen. This comedic stereotype has its roots in real life cases of the 19th century, including that recounted in the 2014 book The Man Who Thought He Was Napoleon, which tells of how a day after Napoleon's body was returned to Paris for burial in December 1840, the director of a Paris hospital for the insane admitted fourteen men claiming to be the famous Emperor.

public-domain-review

Mar 9, 2017

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2024-05-01T21:44:48.848050

airopaidia-1786-the-narrative-of-a-balloon-excursion

Airopaidia (1786) — the Narrative of a Balloon Excursion Nov 29, 2016 Thomas Baldwin's Airopaidia (1786) is a remarkable insight into the early days of ballooning. Coming in at almost 400 pages the book is a wonderfully detailed account of Baldwin's one day in the air over Chester in 1785. Uniquely in this period, Baldwin attempts to describe his experience not only verbally but using images: three expensively produced plates depicting the view from the balloon, the balloon in the view, and the charted passage of the balloon over the landscape (see images below). Together these illustrative plates can be seen as the first ever "real" overhead aerial views.

public-domain-review

Nov 29, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:44:49.372780

w-e-b-du-bois-hand-drawn-infographics-of-african-american-life-1900

W. E. B. Du Bois’ Hand-Drawn Infographics of African-American Life (1900) Text by Adam Green Feb 7, 2017 William Edward Burghardt "W. E. B." Du Bois — sociologist, historian, activist, Pan-Africanist, and prolific author — had also, it turns out, a mighty fine eye for graphic design. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts in 1868, Du Bois studied at Fisk University, Humboldt University in Berlin, and Harvard (where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate), and in 1897 he became a professor of history, sociology and economics at Atlanta University. Two years later he published his first major academic work The Philadelphia Negro (1899), a detailed and comprehensive sociological study of the African-American people of Philadelphia, based on his earlier field work. The following year, along with collaborators Thomas J. Calloway and Daniel Murray, Du Bois travelled to Europe, firstly to the First Pan-African Conference held in London, and then to the Paris Exposition to present a groundbreaking exhibition on the state of African-American life — "The Exhibit of American Negroes" — which, according to Du Bois, attempted to show "(a) The history of the American Negro. (b) His present condition. (c) His education. (d) His literature." In addition to an extensive collection of photographs, four volumes containing 400 official patents by African Americans, more than 200 books penned by African-American authors, various maps, and a statuette of Frederick Douglass, the exhibition featured a total of fifty-eight stunning hand-drawn charts (a selection of which we present below). Created by Du Bois and his students at Atlanta, the charts, many of which focus on economic life in Georgia, managed to condense an enormous amount of data into a set of aesthetically daring and easily digestible visualisations. As Alison Meier notes in Hyperallergic, "they’re strikingly vibrant and modern, almost anticipating the crossing lines of Piet Mondrian or the intersecting shapes of Wassily Kandinsky". While the exhibition was pretty much ignored by the mainstream US press, it can be seen as very much a milestone in the fight for equal rights. Although separate from the main United States national building of the Paris Exposition, "The Exhibit of American Negroes" occupied one fourth of the total exhibition space allocated to the US in the multinational Palace of Social Economy and Congresses, and an estimated 50 million people passed through during the 7 months it was up. Back home Black periodicals like The Colored American wrote extensively about the project, and no doubt galvanised a new generation of activists. Du Bois himself would go on to rise to national prominence as leader of the Niagara Movement, a group of African-American activists campaigning for equal rights, and as co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.

public-domain-review

Feb 7, 2017

Adam Green

collection

2024-05-01T21:44:50.035573

francesco-tamagno-sings-verdi-s-otello-death-scene-1903

Francesco Tamagno sings Verdi’s Otello, Death Scene (1903) Feb 9, 2017 When Giuseppe Verdi's opera Otello first opened on 5th February 1887, it was the great tenor Francesco Tamagno who took the lead role. Here he is in 1903, two years after Verdi's death and two years before his own, singing the death scene of Othello, "Niun Mi Tema". It is worth listening to the very end to catch the strange groan, which we can only assume is Tamagno bringing some theatrical drama of a death throe to the recording (made at Thomas Edison's Menlo Park). That, or he's just remembered something rather terribly important he forgot to do.

public-domain-review

Feb 9, 2017

collection

2024-05-01T21:44:50.489584

images-from-johann-zahn-s-oculus-artificialis-1685

Images from Johann Zahn’s Oculus Artificialis (1685) Mar 7, 2017 In 1685, the Würzburg cleric Johann Zahn published his Oculus Artificialis Teledioptricus Sive Telescopium (The Long-Distance Artificial Eye, or Telescope). In the work he provides an early and comprehensive account of the function and usage of a number of optical instruments, including the camera obscura and magic lantern (whose invention he credits to Athanasius Kircher), and various other lanterns, slides, peepshow boxes, telescopes, microscopes, lenses, and reflectors. Among the studies is an envisaging, for the very first time, of a portable hand-held version of the camera obscura. At the heart of the imagined device is a mirror reflex mechanism, technology that would not see realisation until a century and a half later with the birth of the photographic camera. Zahn's ideas and explanations are furnished by a plethora of innovative, and, at times, wonderfully surreal engravings, highlights of which we feature below.

public-domain-review

Mar 7, 2017

collection

2024-05-01T21:44:50.967800

just-imagine-1947

Just Imagine (1947) May 28, 2013 Film using stop animation shows the character "Tommy Telephone" (the AT&T advertising "spokescreature" at the time) making a telephone by assembling 433 separate parts.

public-domain-review

May 28, 2013

collection

2024-05-01T21:44:51.917282

the-wisdom-of-robert-louis-stevenson-1904

The Wisdom of Robert Louis Stevenson (1904) Aug 15, 2013 A book of posthumously collected extracts from the writings of Robert Louis Stevenson, the Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer, most famous for his books Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

public-domain-review

Aug 15, 2013

collection

2024-05-01T21:44:52.449970

the-knife-throwing-mother-1950

The Knife Throwing Mother (1950) Jul 7, 2013 A series of animated GIFs excerpted by Okkult Motion Pictures from a short Universal Newsreel from 1950, in which the knife thrower Louella Gallagher performs with her two daughters: Connie Ann of 5 years and Colleena Sue 2 and 1/2. You can see the full film featured on The Public Domain Review here and also on the Internet Archive as part of the Prelinger Archives collection. See more creations from Okkult Motion Pictures here in our Animated GIFs Collection. Okkult Motion Pictures is the brainchild of Marco Calabrese and Alessandro Scali from Turin, Italy. With the Excerpts project, Okkult Motion Pictures aims to bring to light the most interesting and unusual out-of-copyright moving images occulted in Internet archives, through a series of animated gifs. A digital archivalism project for the diffusion of open knowledge. Okkult Motion Pictures official website: / Facebook / Twitter All Okkult animated GIFs published here under a CC-BY-SA license.

public-domain-review

Jul 7, 2013

collection

2024-05-01T21:44:52.921727

nursery-lessons-in-words-of-one-syllable-1838

Nursery Lessons in Words of One Syllable (1838) Aug 1, 2013 A charming little illustrated book for young readers, consisting entirely of words of one syllable.

public-domain-review

Aug 1, 2013

collection

2024-05-01T21:44:53.244054

remmelin-s-anatomical-flap-book-1667

Remmelin's Anatomical ‘Flap’ Book (1667) Jun 11, 2013 This volume is a rare edition in Dutch of the greatest of the anatomical 'flap' books. The work features three full-page plates with dozens of detailed anatomical illustrations superimposed so that lifting the layers shows the anatomy as it would appear during dissection. Although flaps had been used in printing before, Remmelin was the first to use them on this scale. Eight prints of the plates were produced then cut apart and pasted together to form the layers. The first authorized edition was printed in Latin in 1619 with the title Catoptrum Microcosmicum. The plates were printed in 1613, and the text without the plates was printed the following year, both without the consent of the author. Although Remmelin's work was very popular and went through a number of editions, the format of the flaps was very delicate and not practical for the dissection room. Copies such as this one with all of the flaps intact are very rare. (Text from the NLM website)

public-domain-review

Jun 11, 2013

collection

2024-05-01T21:44:53.735830

the-corset-x-rays-of-dr-ludovic-o-followell-1908

The Corset X-Rays of Dr Ludovic O’Followell (1908) Text by Hunter Dukes Jun 18, 2013 The x-rays collected below come from Dr. Ludovic O’Followell’s Le Corset (1905–1908), the first volume of which contains an abridged history of the garment, the second, a medical evaluation of its safety. A columnist for the deluxe corsetier’s magazine Les Dessous Elégance, the French doctor was responding to a nineteenth-century backlash against bound support, the most extreme elements of which castigated women seeking a “wisp waist” as criminals with perverted taste, who intentionally harmed their childbearing abilities for the sake of vanity. The birth of the modern corset tracks the rise of courtly manners in Europe. But the advent of metal eyelets in the 1820s and 30s, which allowed for tighter cinching, unleashed a social panic that led to the garment’s decline. From the late 1860s through the early 1890s, The Lancet published scores of articles decrying the corset’s effects on organ health, costal breathing, and rib structure. Moralizing fiction writers found a new cause. Guy de Maupassant’s short stories, for example, are full of attacks on women wearing deforming corsets: Madame Dufour of “A Country Excursion” can “hardly breathe”, her corset forcing “her superabundant bosom up to her double chin”, while the titular “Mother of Monsters” of 1883’s “La Mère aux monstres”, pregnant and bound in “a corset of her own invention, made of boards and cord”, “maimed the little unborn being, cramping it with that frightful corset”. Of course, there were real physical consequences to overtightening, especially for those forced into corsets before adulthood. Yet, as Valerie Steele has argued, some of the social reformers against the corset had alternative agendas, masking an attack on female self-expression as a public health initiative. “By simultaneously constructing an image of irreproachable propriety and one of blatant sexual allure”, writes Steele, “the corset allowed women to articulate sexual subjectivity in a socially acceptable way”. In 1902, shortly before Dr. Ludovic O’Followell published the first volume of Le Corset, Dr. Phillippe Maréchal, “one of the best known ladies’ doctors in Paris”, proposed a law banning women under the age of thirty from wearing corsets — punishable by three months imprisonment — that would force corset vendors to track the name, age, and address of all customers. As a skeptical Los Angeles Herald reporter summed up: “In short, he claims that women’s dress has caused a frightful physical deterioration in the human species.” In response to these debates, Dr. O’Followell first modified the materials of various corsets, so that their features would be expressed through radiography, and then imaged both the bodies of the healthy and those who “abused” the garb. His conclusion, distilled in the second volume’s preface, is that a “harmless corset, the ideal corset, at least medically speaking, can exist”. Yet O’Followell’s treatise also reveals the garment’s potential effects on the thorax, liver, intestines, and other organs vital to life if worn to extremes or from childhood. In a curious detail, it seems x-rays were penetrating corsets within two years of their discovery, with the Queen of Portugal supposedly asking for images of how her organs were arranged while wearing one.

public-domain-review

Jun 18, 2013

Hunter Dukes

collection

2024-05-01T21:44:54.192021

the-first-tour-de-france-1903

The First Tour de France (1903) Jul 18, 2013 The 2013 Tour de France marks the 100th of the event's history, which began in 1903 (the competition was put on hold during the two world wars). Strangely, this inaugural event of 1903 had it's origins in one of France's greatest political scandals - the Dreyfuss Affair. In 1894 a young French artillery officer of Jewish descent, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, was convicted of high treason but then, years later, was proven to be innocent in the light of new evidence, evidence which the military attempted to suppress. The ensuing debate over Dreyfuss' innocence, and the wider issues of anti-semitism in which it was embedded, divided the nation. One such division occurred within France's most popular cycling magazine L'Velo, causing it to split into two when an anti-Dreyfuss contingent broke away to form L'Auto-Velo. L'Velo's owner won a court case forcing L'Auto-Velo to change their name, which they did, to L'Auto, a move which saw their sales subsequently plummet. In an effort to boost their waning popularity, and win back their cycling fans, L'Auto set up the Tour de France in 1903. It was a hugely successful campaign which caused their sales to increase 6-fold during and after the race and, eventually, pushed L'Velo into bankruptcy. The 1903 competition was run only in six fairly flat stages, unlike the mountainous 21 stage event it would grow to become, however, each of these 1903 stages were extraordinarily long, with an average distance of over 400 km (250 mi), more than double the distance of today's. 60 cyclists, all professionals or semi-professionals, started the race, of whom 49 were French, 4 Belgian, 4 Swiss, 2 German, and one was Italian, Maurice Garin, the pre-race favourite who eventually went on to win the event. Garin would go onto also win the next year's race only to then be disqualified along with eight other riders for cheating including the illegal use of cars and trains.

public-domain-review

Jul 18, 2013

collection

2024-05-01T21:44:54.514323

frank-desprez-s-lasca-read-by-harry-e-humphrey-1920

Frank Desprez’s “Lasca” read by Harry E. Humphrey (1920) Aug 22, 2013 Edison recording of Harry E. Humphrey reading the English writer Frank Desprez's most famous poem "Lasca". This ballad-like piece, first published in a London magazine in 1882, tells the story of a Mexican girl and her cowboy sweetheart caught in a cattle stampede "in Texas down by the Rio Grande".

public-domain-review

Aug 22, 2013

collection

2024-05-01T21:44:54.952320

women-having-tea-in-napier-new-zealand-ca-1890

Women having tea in Napier, New Zealand (ca.1890) Aug 9, 2013 An animated GIF created by Okkult Motion Pictures from a stereoscopic photograph featured in the collection of the National Library of New Zealand. The photograph taken by William Williams shows his wife Lydia (dressed in black, second from left) and other women seated for tea outside their house in Napier, New Zealand. * Okkult Motion Pictures is the brainchild of Marco Calabrese and Alessandro Scali from Turin, Italy. With the Excerpts project, Okkult Motion Pictures aims to bring to light the most interesting and unusual out-of-copyright moving images occulted in Internet archives, through a series of animated gifs. A digital archivalism project for the diffusion of open knowledge. Okkult Motion Pictures official website / Twitter * All Okkult animated GIFs published here under a CC-BY-SA license.

public-domain-review

Aug 9, 2013

collection

2024-05-01T21:44:55.463742

the-belly-of-a-horse-1820

The Belly of a Horse (1820) Jul 31, 2013 Anatomical diagram from William Carver's Practical horse farrier, or, The traveller's pocket companion: shewing the best method to preserve the horse in health; and likewise the cure of the most prominent diseases to which this noble animal is subject, in the United States of America : the whole being the result of nearly forty years' experience, with an extensive practice, published in 1820.

public-domain-review

Jul 31, 2013

collection

2024-05-01T21:44:55.957716

perversion-for-profit-1965

Perversion for Profit (1965) Jun 19, 2013 Perversion for Profit is a 1965 propaganda film financed by Charles Keating and narrated by news reporter George Putnam. A vehement diatribe against pornography, the film argues that sexually explicit materials corrupt young viewers and readers, leading to acts of violence and "perverted" attitudes regarding sex - including inclination toward homosexuality. Pornography is also painted as part of the Communist conspiracy and the motor behind the decline of Western civilization: This same type of rot and decay caused sixteen of the nineteen major civilizations to vanish from the Earth. Magnificent Egypt, classical Greece, imperial Rome, all crumbled away not because of the strength of the aggressor, but because of moral decay from within. But we are in a unique position to cure our own ills: our Constitution was written by men who put their trust in God and founded a government based in His laws. These laws are on our side. We have a constitutional guarantee of protection against obscenity. And, in this day especially, we must seek to deliver ourselves from this twisting, torturing evil. We must save our nation from decay and deliver our children from the horrors of perversion. We must make our land, 'the land of the free', a safe home. Oh, God, deliver us, Americans, from evil. (Wikipedia)

public-domain-review

Jun 19, 2013

collection

2024-05-01T21:44:56.441931

the-kiss-1896

The Kiss (1896) Jul 9, 2013 An animated GIF excerpted by Okkult Motion Pictures from a 19th century Edison film. "An osculatory performance by May Irwin and John Rice".... Scene from the New York stage comedy, The Widow Jones, in which Irwin and Rice starred. According to Edison film historian C. Musser, the actors staged their kiss for the camera at the request of the New York world newspaper, and the resulting film was the most popular Edison Vitascope film in 1896. The first ever kiss to be caught on film. * Okkult Motion Pictures is the brainchild of Marco Calabrese and Alessandro Scali from Turin, Italy. With the Excerpts project, Okkult Motion Pictures aims to bring to light the most interesting and unusual out-of-copyright moving images occulted in Internet archives, through a series of animated gifs. A digital archivalism project for the diffusion of open knowledge. Okkult Motion Pictures official website / Twitter * All Okkult animated GIFs published here under a CC-BY-SA license.

public-domain-review

Jul 9, 2013

collection

2024-05-01T21:44:56.940923

pollen-up-close-1837

Pollen Up Close (1837) Jul 16, 2013 Illustrations of various strains of pollen in extreme magnification, as featured in Ueber den Pollen (1837), a book by St. Petersburg based German pharmacist and chemist Carl Julius Fritzsche. For a key identifying each pollen type pictured see these descriptions (in German)

public-domain-review

Jul 16, 2013

collection

2024-05-01T21:44:57.426490

the-baby-s-own-aesop-1908

The Baby’s Own Aesop (1908) May 30, 2013 Walter Crane's beautifully illustrated version of Aesop's fables, shortened and put into limericks for the younger reader and first published in 1887. Aesop's Fables or the Aesopica is a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and story-teller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 560 BCE. Apollonius of Tyana, a 1st-century CE philosopher, is recorded as having said about Aesop: ... like those who dine well off the plainest dishes, he made use of humble incidents to teach great truths, and after serving up a story he adds to it the advice to do a thing or not to do it. Then, too, he was really more attached to truth than the poets are; for the latter do violence to their own stories in order to make them probable; but he by announcing a story which everyone knows not to be true, told the truth by the very fact that he did not claim to be relating real events. (Wikipedia)

public-domain-review

May 30, 2013

collection

2024-05-01T21:44:57.936025

the-life-and-adventures-of-james-f-o-connell-the-tattooed-man-1845

The Life and Adventures of James F. O’Connell, the Tattooed Man (1845) Jul 30, 2013 One of the main attractions at P.T. Barnum's 1842 'freakshow' American Museum was a man named James F. O'Connell, notable for his head to toe covering in tattoos, the U.S.'s first tattooed showman. To accompany his unusual appearance, the show featured O'Connell telling of how he received his tattoo during his years of captivity in the South Pacific. According to his account he became shipwrecked on the Caroline Islands and saved himself from death at the hands of the Ponapeans natives by performing a series of Irish jigs for their amusement. Though his life was spared he tells of how he was subject to a compulsory tattooing at the hands of a series of "voluptuous virgins" and how he was forced to marry the last of his tattooers. When a ship landed on the island in 1833 (some 5 years or so since his shipwreck there in the late 1820s) O'Connell left, making his way to the U.S. where he eventually ended up working in P.T.Barnum's 'freakshow', telling tales of the eight day long process of tattooing he underwent and performing the Irish jigs which saved him and endeared him to the Ponapean people.

public-domain-review

Jul 30, 2013

collection

2024-05-01T21:44:58.225270

salome-with-john-the-baptist-s-head-at-the-rijksmuseum

Salome with John The Baptist’s Head at the Rijksmuseum Jun 6, 2013 And when a convenient day was come, that Herod on his birthday made a supper to his lords, high captains, and chief estates of Galilee; And when the daughter of the said Herodias came in, and danced, and pleased Herod and them that sat with him, the king said unto the damsel, Ask of me whatsoever thou wilt, and I will give it thee. And he sware unto her, Whatsoever thou shalt ask of me, I will give it thee, unto the half of my kingdom. And she went forth, and said unto her mother, What shall I ask? And she said, The head of John the Baptist. And she came in straightway with haste unto the king, and asked, saying, I will that thou give me by and by in a charger the head of John the Baptist. And the king was exceeding sorry; yet for his oath's sake, and for their sakes which sat with him, he would not reject her. And immediately the king sent an executioner, and commanded his head to be brought: and he went and beheaded him in the prison, and brought his head in a charger, and gave it to the damsel: and the damsel gave it to her mother. And when his disciples heard of it, they came and took up his corpse, and laid it in a tomb. (Mark 6:21-29, King James Version)

public-domain-review

Jun 6, 2013

collection

2024-05-01T21:44:58.692925

a-midsummer-schottische

A Midsummer Schottische Jun 21, 2013 Traditional music for the midsummer "Schottische" dance, known as "Schottis" in Scandinavia where this score is thought to have originated from. The dance is considered by The Oxford Companion to Music to be a kind of slower polka, with continental-European origin (possibly Bohemia). The recording might possibly be of accordion duo Arvid Franzen and Einar Holt recorded in the mid 1920s in New York.

public-domain-review

Jun 21, 2013

collection

2024-05-01T21:44:59.007068

engravings-from-a-french-ice-skating-manual-1813

Engravings from a French Ice-Skating Manual (1813) Aug 20, 2013 Coloured engravings from France's first ice-skating manual Le Vrai Patineur (The True Skater) written by Jean Garcin, a book praised in Honoré de Balzac's Illusions Perdues. As well as the aide of eight engraved plates, four of which are featured here, the manual details many movements and poses, putting an emphasis on artistry and grace in contrast to the more straightforward technical approach usually practised in England. The book is considered to be one of the earliest works in any language devoted entirely to ice-skating.

public-domain-review

Aug 20, 2013

collection

2024-05-01T21:44:59.433234

the-book-of-wonderful-characters-1869

The Book of Wonderful Characters (1869) Jul 17, 2013 Printmaker James Caulfield (1764–1826) spent much of his career publishing illustrated books about "remarkable persons". He began his first series around 1788 and continued it sporadically from 1790 to 1795, with books on a similar theme continuing to appear in the first decades of the nineteenth century. More than forty years after his death, this collection of biographies (produced in collaboration with Henry Wilson (fl. 1820–30)) was republished in 1869. The vignettes, accompanied by engravings of each individual, describe a wide-ranging group – from the man who died aged 152 to a "remarkable glutton" to a woman who lived on the smell of flowers — their only common factor being that they were in some way "wonderful". (Text via Cambridge University Press, through which you can buy a 2012 reprint edition).

public-domain-review

Jul 17, 2013

collection

2024-05-01T21:44:59.918837

a-selection-from-the-getty-s-open-content-program

A Selection from The Getty’s Open Content Program Aug 14, 2013 In August of this year The Getty announced the launch of their Open Content Program which sees more than 4500 images from their collection made available under an open license, meaning anyone can share the images freely and without restriction. We've spent the day trawling the thousands of images to bring you a small selection of highlights from their wonderful collection. Visit their site to get exploring yourself.

public-domain-review

Aug 14, 2013

collection

2024-05-01T21:45:00.405883

the-blossoms-of-morality-1806

The Blossoms of Morality (1806) Jun 13, 2013 As the subtitle proclaims, this book originally published in the late 18th century is "intended for the amusement and instruction of young ladies and gentlemen". The introduction is presumably one into the moral ridden world of adults. A vast array of different little stories are told for the purpose, including the excellently titled "Juvenile tyranny conquered" and "The melancholy effects of pride". Each is told in a brilliantly earnest yet flowery style, for example, the first sentence of the first story, "Ernestus and Fragilus", reads: The faint glimmerings of the pale-faced moon on the troubled billows of the ocean are not so fleeting and inconstant as the fortune and condition of human life. 47 beautiful illustrations by I. Bewick adorn it throughout.

public-domain-review

Jun 13, 2013

collection

2024-05-01T21:45:00.861308

the-somersault-man-1923

The Somersault Man (1923) Jul 26, 2013 A short silent clip from a Dutch newsreel showing a man somersaulting through the streets.

public-domain-review

Jul 26, 2013

collection

2024-05-01T21:45:01.346744

coughs-and-sneezes-1945

Coughs and Sneezes (1945) Jul 9, 2013 A series of animated GIFs excerpted by Okkult Motion Pictures from Coughs and Sneezes, a curious and amusing propaganda film from post war era on the dangers presented by... sneezing! You can see the full film featured on the Internet Archive as part of the British Government Public Information Films collection. See more creations from Okkult Motion Pictures here in our Animated GIFs Collection. Okkult Motion Pictures is the brainchild of Marco Calabrese and Alessandro Scali from Turin, Italy. With the Excerpts project, Okkult Motion Pictures aims to bring to light the most interesting and unusual out-of-copyright moving images occulted in Internet archives, through a series of animated gifs. A digital archivalism project for the diffusion of open knowledge. Okkult Motion Pictures official website: / Facebook / Twitter All Okkult animated GIFs published here under a CC-BY-SA license.

public-domain-review

Jul 9, 2013

collection

2024-05-01T21:45:01.848465

with-lord-byron-at-the-sandwich-islands-in-1825

With Lord Byron at the Sandwich Islands in 1825 Aug 4, 2016 The Lord Byron of the title is not the famous poet, but rather his cousin and successor of the peerage, the naval commander George Gordon Byron. He was commander of the HMS Blonde on its 1824/1825 voyage to Hawaii, undertaken primarily with the solemn mission of returning the bodies of King Kamehameha II (Liholiho) and Queen Kamamalu, both of whom had died of measles in England while trying to visit King George IV. In addition to the artist Robert Dampier, the crew also consisted of the Scottish botanist James McCrae of the Royal Horticultural Society, whose diary of the voyage, published in 1922, is featured here.

public-domain-review

Aug 4, 2016

collection

2024-05-01T21:45:02.782444

pages-from-an-illustrated-catalogue-of-period-ornaments-ca-1919

Pages From an Illustrated Catalogue of Period Ornaments (ca. 1919) Sep 29, 2016 The Illustrated Catalogue of Period Ornaments Cast in Composition and Wood Fibre for Woodwork-Furniture features samples of wood carvings offered by the Decorators Supply Company of Chicago at the beginning of the 20th century. These decorative elements — so pleasingly presented in the catalogue — could be glued or nailed to furniture, ceilings, and other architectural surfaces. The catalogue would have been used not only to display the Company’s selection of ornaments, but also to allow customers to request personalised designs. The Decorators Supply Corporation of Chicago is still operative to this day and it specializes in the production of “composition carvings”, also present in the catalogue. These are ornaments which are cast from mixtures containing, among other materials, pitch, oil, and clay.

public-domain-review

Sep 29, 2016

collection

2024-05-01T21:45:03.289582

ernst-haeckel-s-bats-1904

Ernst Haeckel’s Bats (1904) Oct 25, 2016 Plate 67 from Ernst Haeckel’s visually dazzling Kunstformen der Natur, (Art Forms of Nature), published in 1904. With the assistance of Jena artist-lithographer Adolf Giltsch, Haeckel produced one hundred plates depicting the forms of animal life. With this book Haeckel wanted to create an “aesthetics of nature” and to show how the incessant struggle for existence he had learnt from Darwin was in fact producing an endless beauty and variety of forms – Darwin and Humboldt combined together. Focusing mainly on marine animals, the bat is one of the only mammals featured in the book, but the page of surprisingly cute "chiroptera" is certainly one of the book's most striking offerings. The full line up is: 1-2: Brown Long-eared Bat 3: Lesser Long-eared Bat 4: Lesser False Vampire Bat 5: Big-eared Woolly Bat 6-7: Tomes's Sword-nosed Bat 8: Mexican Funnel-eared Bat 9: Antillean Ghost-faced Bat 10: Flower-faced Bat 11: Greater Spear-nosed Bat 12: Thumbless Bat 13: Greater Horseshoe Bat 14: Wrinkle-faced Bat 15: Spectral Bat 1-2: Brown Long-eared Bat 3: Lesser Long-eared Bat 4: Lesser False Vampire Bat 5: Big-eared Woolly Bat 6-7: Tomes's Sword-nosed Bat 8: Mexican Funnel-eared Bat 9: Antillean Ghost-faced Bat 10: Flower-faced Bat 11: Greater Spear-nosed Bat 12: Thumbless Bat 13: Greater Horseshoe Bat 14: Wrinkle-faced Bat 15: Spectral Bat In addition to creating beautiful art, Haeckel held and promoted disturbing theories on race and eugenics. You can read more about this darker side to Haeckel in Bernd Brunner's essay "Human Forms in Nature". Also read about Haeckel's role in one of science's great controversies in Nick Hopwood's "Copying Pictures, Evidencing Evolution".

public-domain-review

Oct 25, 2016

collection

2024-05-01T21:45:03.762896

painted-photograph-of-an-unknown-man-ca-1855-70

Painted Photograph of an Unknown Man (ca. 1855–70) Oct 11, 2016 In 1839, Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre announced that he'd developed a way of making a lasting image using, not the artist's brush or pen, but the rays of the sun. And so the revolutionary art of photography was born. It would be some decades though before colour could be captured, and so, with demand for colourful images high, photographic studios soon began to hand-colour their monochrome prints. Only three years after Daguerre’s announcement, came the first American patent for hand-colouring daguerreotypes, with a second patent following soon after. There were two ways to steer a photograph from its monochrome existence into the world of colour: hand tinting, which involved subtley painting the image so that it was still identifiable as a photograph, and "over-painting", painting over a photograph so completely so as to entirely obscure its technological origins. The wonderful example featured above, found in the collection of the Rijksmuseum and of unknown provenance, is unusual in that it seems to be neither of these. The bold, almost Van Gogh-esque, application of the paint seems to imply a desire to pass the image off as a painting, but there are sections of the photograph left entirely untouched. It could, of course, be that the job simply, for whatever reason, went unfinished. Though it is perhaps nice to think that this hybrid effect was deliberate — a conscious reflection of a radical period in art history, where the centuries old tradition of painting was meeting a quite different method of capturing a moment in time.

public-domain-review

Oct 11, 2016

collection

2024-05-01T21:45:04.259560

the-human-alphabet

The Human Alphabet Nov 3, 2016 There is arguably nothing more human than the alphabet, given that language, and particularly written language, often tops the list of qualities which distinguish our dear species most distinctly from others. To form the letters of these alphabets using the human body is then, perhaps, not so strange a leap, and, in fact, seems to be rather appropriate. In their own varied ways artists and scribes have been doing it for centuries. Below we've collected some highlights of the many twists and turns of the human font.

public-domain-review

Nov 3, 2016

collection

2024-05-01T21:45:04.716188

phenakistoscopes-1833

Phenakistoscopes (1833) Aug 30, 2016 The Phenakistoscope — a popular Victorian parlour toy, generally marketed for children — is widely considered to be among the earliest forms of animation and the precursor to modern cinema. The device was operated by spinning the cardboard disc, and viewing the reflection of the image in a mirror through a series of moving slits. Through the distortion and flicker, the disc created the illusion that the image was moving. Women danced, men bowed, and animals leapt in short, repeating animations. Many scientists of the era had been experimenting with optical illusions, photography, and image projections, and there was something inevitable about the creation of this device, having been simultaneously invented in 1832, by Joseph Plateau in Brussels and by Simon von Stampfer in Berlin. Plateau was a physicist, but his father had been a painter and illustrator who had enrolled his son at the Academy of Design in Brussels. Although Plateau eventually ended up pursuing science instead, he retained an interest in art and design that proved useful when creating the prototype Phenakistoscope. Plateau’s original designs were hand-painted by himself, an example of the frequent intersection of Victorian artistry with experimental scientific media that defined the period. Only weeks later, unaware of Plateau’s creation, von Stampfer, a mathematician, developed a near-identical device that he named the Stroboscope. The device proved popular, and was soon mass-produced and marketed under some more easily-pronounceable names, including Phantasmascope, Fantoscope, and even the prosaic "Magic Wheel". The series featured here are from a competing product, Mclean’s Optical Illusions or Magic Panorama, which, published in 1833, ranks among the earliest mass-produced Phenakistoscopes. The illustrations we see here are simple moving figures but, over the following years, designs would become more and more complicated, depicting intricate, phantasmagoric scenes in high colour. The Phenakistoscope was eventually supplanted in the popular imagination: firstly by the similar Zoetrope, and then — via Eadweard Muybridge's Zoopraxiscope (which projected the animation) — by film itself. The toy was largely forgotten, relegated to a pre-cinema curiosity. And yet strangely, in the internet age, the concept has come full circle — we find we have returned to producing and sharing similar short, looping animations, reminiscent of a device that preceded the animated GIF by over 155 years.

public-domain-review

Aug 30, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:05.186214

barnards-universal-criminal-cipher-code-1895

Barnard’s Universal Criminal Cipher Code (1895) Sep 6, 2016 Barnard’s Universal Criminal Cipher Code for Telegraphic Communication between Chiefs of Police, Sheriffs, Marshals and other Peace Officers of the United States and Canada (1895) was a book of codes to help disguise internal police telegrams in what amounted to some kind of 19th-century version of the encrypted email. Despite first appearances the “cipher” of the book has some sense of order in its "self-indexing" system, as the Preface explains: Any word beginning with “O” relates to the offense for which the individual is wanted. Any word beginning with “Hi,” relates to height. Any word beginning with “Ag” relates to Age. Any word beginning with “We,” relates to weight. Any word beginning with “Ha” relates to hair. Any word beginning with “E” relates to eyes, ears, eyebrows, etc. As well as the purpose of disguise, the use of the cipher also had a more practical consequence, it made telegrams shorter and so cheaper to send. The example below, with a saving of $5.35, is given in the Preface: Encryption and cost-cutting aside, the use of these ciphers must have made for some strange reading experiences. Amid the gibberish and nonsense one wonders if there was not the occasional accidental gem of experimental prose, strange litanies proclaiming some greater truth, or even perhaps — amongst all the Oblongs and Maidens and Eagles Aghast — unintended clues to the solving of a case. The microfilm above is a little hard to read so we've made some crops on selected pages and included them below.

public-domain-review

Sep 6, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:05.656446

the-rowing-bath-1916

The Rowing-Bath (1916) Sep 14, 2016 Touted as the "newest contribution to the enjoyment of living", news of the ingenious "rowing-bath" comes to us from the pages of a 1916 edition of The Popular Science Monthly. Consisting of what amounts to some sort of a metal dustpan tied by a rubber cord to the taps, the device promises to secure "the zest which accompanies the pleasant pastime of buffeting surf". It seems, however, that the general public did not quite share the excitement of the article, or the ecstatic model it depicts, as nothing much more is heard of the invention again (although we did find mention of a similarly named device from 1904).

public-domain-review

Sep 14, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:06.176228

the-infernal-cauldron-1903

The Infernal Cauldron (1903) Oct 27, 2016 Short film by Georges Méliès, released through his Star Film Company, featuring demons, flames, spectres, and a brilliant array of the film-maker's usual arsenal of tricks. As Wikipdia sums up: "In a Renaissance chamber decorated with devilish faces and a warped coat of arms, a gleeful Satan throws three human victims into a cauldron, which spews out flames. The victims rise from the cauldron as nebulous ghosts, and then turn into fireballs. The fireballs multiply and pursue Satan around the chamber. Finally Satan himself leaps into the infernal cauldron, which gives off a final burst of flame." Enjoy!

public-domain-review

Oct 27, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:06.600849

kobayashi-kiyochika-s-cartoons-of-the-russo-japanese-war-1904-5

Kobayashi Kiyochika’s Cartoons of the Russo-Japanese War (1904–5) Aug 16, 2016 This series of prints, from the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5, depict scenes fairly typical of Japanese propaganda for the period. The victorious Japanese forces are shown as valiant heroes; the invading Russians are thin, foolish and effeminate. Many similar prints were produced over the course of the war by other artists, but this series stands out as their creator, Kobayashi Kiyochika (1847–1915), was not only an extremely accomplished and versatile artist, but also an unlikely propagandist. How Kiyochika learnt to paint is unknown. There is little evidence that he ever trained in the Japanese style, but seems to have had some rudimentary training in Western painting under Charles Wirgman, an English artist and cartoonist — although there are reports that he hated the smell of oil paints so much that he abandoned the medium almost immediately. He was, however, inspired by Western realism and impressionism, and this filtered through into his work. This modern take on painting reflected the fast-modernising world Kiyochika experienced around him. His family were wealthy and respected under the rule of the Tokugawa Shogun, however when the shogun was deposed during the Meiji Restoration, they lost everything and went into exile. When Kiyochika eventually returned to Tokyo, the place of his birth, in 1874, he found it had entirely transformed. The Meiji government had opened Japan’s borders and, after years of isolationist rule, engineers, scientists and architects from the West began to pour in. Tokyo was now filled with brick buildings, trains and railways lines, telegraph poles and steamships. Kioychika began painting the cityscape in the ukiyo-e woodblock tradition, but with shading and perspective influenced by Western art, juxtaposing the elements of the traditional Japanese past with the modernising West. This choice of subject matter makes Kiyochika’s work stand apart from other practitioners of the style, which traditionally depicted ghosts and demons, legends from Kabuki, or samurai and historical figures. After the Tokyo Fire of 1881, Kiyochika stopped producing these landscapes — although the images he painted of the fire would come to inspire his depiction of bombshell blasts and explosions in his war prints. Perhaps influenced by Wirgman, Kiyochika moved into producing satirical cartoons for newspapers. Cartoons, as a medium that could easily be understood by both Japanese readers and those in the West, appealed to Kiyochika and he soon became the main illustrator for Marumaru Chinbun, a satirical newspaper sometimes compared to Punch. A talented caricaturist, his depictions of politicians and military figures were so recognisable that they did not need to be labelled. Due, in part, to his family’s loss of stature following the Meiji Restoration, Kiyochika was powerfully anti-government in his stance, and often was subject to legal action and prosecution for his cartoons — even serving several stints in prison for his controversial rendering of high-profile government figures. Given this long-held opposition to the government, it is perhaps surprising that he turned his hand to government propaganda — first with a set of 1895 prints depicting scenes from the First Sino-Japanese War, and then almost ten years later, with the scenes featured here. His satirical cartoons were far removed from the patriotic war prints he produced during this time, although we plainly see his skill as a caricaturist in his images of the Russian soldiers, his interest in modern technological developments, and his continued affinity for Western realism. It is possible that he discovering a nationalistic streak during wartime, but it is also true that cartoonists can be efficient instruments of propaganda, and these prints proved very popular at the time. After the end of the war, Kiyochika never again achieved the same level of popularity, and returned to painting landscapes.

public-domain-review

Aug 16, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:07.077812

the-surreal-art-of-alchemical-diagrams

The Surreal Art of Alchemical Diagrams Aug 2, 2016 Derived from the Arabic root "kimia", from the Coptic "khem" (referring to the fertile black soil of the Nile delta), the word "alchemy" alludes to the dark mystery of the primordial or First Matter (the Khem). The discovery of this elusive original matter, from which all others are deemed simply polluted variants (the purist being Gold), is considered the alchemist's central goal — along with the discovery of the Stone of Knowledge (The Philosophers' Stone) and the key to Eternal Youth. As you can imagine, not the simplest of day jobs. As well as reams of text, the ins and outs of the alchemist's task, steeped as it is in a dizzyingly complex symbology, has given birth to a whole host of strange and wondrous imagery over the centuries. Here we pick out some favourites, many found on Wellcome Images and the brilliant Manly Palmer Hall collection at the Internet Archive.

public-domain-review

Aug 2, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:07.570736

the-death-and-burial-of-cock-robin

The Death and Burial of Cock Robin Aug 11, 2016 The “Death of Cock Robin”, also known as “The Death and Burial of Cock Robin” is a somewhat macabre English nursery rhyme describing the murder and the funeral of a robin. When Cock Robin is shot dead by a sparrow, the birds organise his funeral: depending on the version, the Owl will dig his grave, the Rook will read the service, the Kite will carry him to the grave, and the Dove will be the chief mourner. The origins of the tale are uncertain, but a stained window depicting a robin killed by an arrow could already be found in the fifteenth century at Buckland Rectory (Gloucestershire). The earliest known English record of the rhyme, according to the Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, dates back to 1744 when it appeared in Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book. The proximity of this date to the political decline of Robert Walpole has led some to suggest that the tale may be describing Walpole’s fall from power, or that an ancient nursery rhyme might have been “resurrected” for the occasion. The popular tale has generated a variety of parodies and spinoffs: Byron recalled the verses in “Who killed John Keats?”, written on the occasion of Keats’ death, while “The Trial and Execution of the Sparrow for Killing Cock Robin” described the aftermath of Cock Robin’s funeral. In this version, the Sparrow is brought to court and interrogated. The accounts of the witnesses get increasingly complex: was Sparrow really the murderer? Or was it a cat? In the end Judge Hawke, deciding the sparrow to still be guilty, takes the metering out of punishment into his own hands, or, perhaps more accurately, beak: So he eat up the SparrowThe rest got away,They thought it not safeNear such Justice to stay. In 1861, taxidermist Walter Potter staged the Death of Cock Robin with 98 different species of embalmed birds. The tableau accurately recreated each stanza of the rhyme. In the tableau, like in other illustrated versions, a bull can be seen pulling the bells for the service. It is very likely that the bull was originally supposed to be a “bullfinch”, and therefore a bird like the rest of the mourners. Below we show some of our favourites from the many many editions produced over the centuries. Also definitely worth checking out the wonderful illustrations from the 1865 version by H. L. Stephens, featured over at the 50 Watts blog.

public-domain-review

Aug 11, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:08.065762

kwaidan-stories-and-studies-of-strange-things-1904

Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things (1904) Sep 27, 2016 Deriving its title from the word for "ghost story" in Japanese Kwaidan is a book by scholar and translator Lafcadio Hearn in which are compiled an array of ghost stories hailing from Japan. Hearn writes in his introduction, written only months before his death, that the majority of the stories were translated from old Japanese texts (some of which themselves were based on earlier Chinese tales), although one of the stories, "Riki-Baka", he declares to be of his own making, based on a personal experience. Unmentioned in the introduction, another of the stories — "Hi-Mawari", written in the first person — appears almost certainly to be born from his own experience also, a recollection of a childhood experience in Wales (he'd spent time near Bangor when a child living with his Aunt). Among the many curious and spooky happenings related in the other stories, we hear of a musician called upon to perform for the dead, man-eating goblins, a mysterious face appearing in a cup of tea, and, rather terrifyingly, a featureless girl with a face as smooth as an egg. The final section of the book, titled "Insect-Studies", is a presentation of Chinese and Japanese superstitions relating to the insect world, specifically butterflies (personifications of the human soul), mosquitoes (Karmic reincarnation of jealous or greedy people) and ants (mankind's superior in terms of chastity, ethics, social structure, longevity and evolution). In 1964, Masaki Kobayashi's highly acclaimed Kwaidan was released, a Japanese anthology horror film based on stories from Hearn's collections of Japanese folk tales, mainly his Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things after which the film was named.

public-domain-review

Sep 27, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:08.530446

the-over-incubated-baby-1901

The Over-Incubated Baby (1901) Aug 10, 2016 Great short film directed by illusionist-turned-filmmaker Walter R. Booth and produced by Robert W. Paul. A mother brings her baby to Professor Bakem's newly invented baby incubator, which claims to give one year's worth of infant growth in just one hour. However, things go a little awry for this customer, after a spillage and resulting fire cause the device to overheat while her baby is inside. When the “child” eventually emerges, the mother is met with a distressing surprise.

public-domain-review

Aug 10, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:09.046199

finnish-opera-singer-eino-rautavaara-1905-9

Finnish Opera Singer Eino Rautavaara (1905–9) Oct 4, 2016 Featuring a mix of classical and traditional Finnish songs, these recordings were made between 1905 and 1909 by Finnish opera singer Eino Rautavaara (1879–1939). After several years studying abroad in Rome, Berlin, Paris, and Milan, Rautavaara served from 1912 as the Helsinki Kallio church cantor and a teacher at the Church Music Institute from 1922. He was the father to Einojuhani Rautavaara (pictured above with his father), who grew to become one of Finland's most notable composers. Eino died when his son was just 11 years old, and Einojuhani himself passed away this summer, in July 2016.

public-domain-review

Oct 4, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:09.559684

opium-destruction-san-francisco-1914

Opium Destruction, San Francisco (1914) Sep 22, 2016 In the shadow of an unfinished City Hall, still clad in scaffolding, government authorities destroy confiscated opium in downtown San Francisco, 1914. Setting fire to the stash they create a great plume of smoke and, presumably, some pretty lightheaded bystanders downwind.

public-domain-review

Sep 22, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:10.167327

contents-of-an-ostrich-s-stomach-ca-1930

Contents of an Ostrich’s Stomach (ca. 1930) Aug 23, 2016 Taken by Frederick William Bond, photographer at the Zoological Society of London, this unusual image shows the contents of an ostrich's stomach extracted after its death. While the bird is more commonly known to feast on a diet of roots, leaves, seeds, and flowers (with the occasional snake or lizard thrown in if needed), this ostrich seemed to have had a particular penchant for the high street fashion accessory. Amongst the items retrieved and noted down by Bond on the back of the photograph were two handkerchiefs (one lace) and a buttoned glove — presumably items expelled from the daily stream of visitors to the zoo, a sad consequence of the bird's urban existence. Also found were a length of rope and various metal items, including assorted coins, tacks, staples and hooks, and a four-inch nail. Its perhaps not too surprising to learn that this last item was the cause of death.

public-domain-review

Aug 23, 2016

collection

2024-05-01T21:45:10.634299

details-from-bosch-s-garden-of-earthly-delights-ca-1500

Details from Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights (ca. 1500) Aug 9, 2016 Painted sometime between 1490 and 1510, The Garden of Earthly Delights is perhaps Hieronymus Bosch's most ambitious work. Formed of three panels and totalling almost four metres in length, the triptych is a dizzyingly detailed and delightfully surreal work, the possible meanings of which have kept scholars busy for centuries. The left panel — sometimes referred to as the Joining of Adam and Eve — is home to a paradise-like scene from the Garden of Eden, most likely of that moment in which God presents Eve to Adam. Although it clearly has its routes in the Biblical story, Bosch's particular take on it — with its strange beasts, Adam's almost-lustful gaze – is unlike anything else depicted in the history of Western art. The middle panel, the largest of the three, seems to continue from the "first" (the triptych is most likely meant to be read from left to right), with their skylines matching up. The settings also seem to echo each other, though the middle panel is quite different in tone. Here the scene is one of unbridled frolic, the landscape teeming with naked figures, along with various oversized animals, plants, and enormous fruit — a mixture of the real and fantastical. With so many cavorting nudes there is an undoubtedly erotic element to the panel, yet one shot through with a feeling of innocence. According to the Bosch scholar Wilhelm Fraenger, this eroticism is of ambiguous import, at once an allegory of spiritual transition and a playground of corruption. Chromatically the right panel differs markedly from the others and is clearly a depiction of Hell, a familiar setting for the works of Bosch. And he doesn't hold back. The scene screams with weird and nightmarish imagery: knife-wielding giant ears, man-eating bird-monsters, unwanted advances from a porcine nun, and in one remarkable tableau, a giant pink monster singing from a musical score emblazoned on a human backside. Closing up the left and right panel reveals the exterior panels of the piece: what is almost certainly a depiction of the creation of the world. The tiny figure of God can be seen in the upper left hand corner, and above him is inscribed a quote from Psalm 33 — Ipse dixit, et facta sunt: ipse mandāvit, et creāta sunt — For he spake and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast. In celebration of the 500th anniversary of Bosch's death (he died on 9 August 1516), we offer up a selection of details from this his most famous picture. By doing so we hope to show a little of his genius and encourage you to explore this remarkable work for yourselves. For those with a strong internet connection (we couldn't actually manage it ourselves) we highly recommend having a go at downloading the enormous digital version (more than 30,000 pixels wide) here on Wikimedia Commons.

public-domain-review

Aug 9, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:11.111199

the-up-to-date-sandwich-book-400-ways-to-make-a-sandwich-1909

The Up-To-Date Sandwich Book: 400 Ways to Make a Sandwich (1909) Aug 25, 2016 Although the idea of some kind of bread or bread-like substance lying under, or enclosing another food, can be traced back to the middle ages and beyond, the modern sandwich as we know it, with its enigmatic name, is a more recent affair. Its etymology hails from the English county of Kent and the habits of John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, an 18th-century aristocrat. Legend has it that, in search of a way to eat without ceasing his much-loved games of cribbage and sullying his cards with grease, he began to order from his valet meat inserted between two pieces of bread. The idea caught on and others began to order "the same as Sandwich!". Sandwich's biographer, N. A. M. Rodger, contests the gambling angle: with the Earl's work commitments in mind, he argues that the eating would much more likely have been at his work desk. Whether tending to Britannia's rule of the waves or indulging his gambling addiction, the idea and name spread quickly. Not long after the Earl's first order, the sandwich appears by name in the diary entry of a man named Edward Gibbon who saw “twenty or thirty of the first men of the kingdom” eating them in a restaurant. Although the sandwich became well established in England, the uptake in the US was a little slow (perhaps in opposition to their former rulers), a sandwich recipe not appearing in an American cookbook until 1815. By 1909 it was a different story, as the wonderfully no-nonsense Up-To-Date Sandwich Book featured here can attest to, a popularity no doubt linked to what made the food form soar amongst the working classes of the British industrial revolution — it was fast, portable, and cheap. As the subtitle betrays, no less than four hundred different sandwiches are detailed in the book. Enjoy!

public-domain-review

Aug 25, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:11.579717

potts-s-discovery-of-witches-in-the-county-of-lancaster-1845

Potts’s Discovery of Witches in the County of Lancaster (1845) Oct 20, 2016 This is a nineteenth-century reprint, with additional introduction by James Crossley, of Thomas Potts' The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster, first published in 1613. Potts' text, commissioned by the court at the time, is an account of a series of English witch trials that took place on 18th and 19th August 1612, commonly known as the Lancashire witch trials. Of the twenty women and men accused of consorting with the dark side — including the Pendle witches and the Samlesbury witches — eleven were found guilty and hanged (with one dying in jail), another was sentenced to stand in the pillory, and the rest were let go. The accusations of witchery all began in mid-March of that year when a pedlar from Halifax named John Law had a frightening encounter with a poor young woman, Alizon Device, in a field near Colne. He refused her request for pins and there was a brief argument during which he was seized by a fit that left him with "his head … drawn awry, his eyes and face deformed, his speech not well to be understood; his thighs and legs stark lame." We can now recognize this as a stroke, perhaps triggered by the stressful encounter. Alizon Device was sent for and surprised all by confessing to the bewitching of John Law and then begged for forgiveness.

public-domain-review

Oct 20, 2016

collection

2024-05-01T21:45:12.060301

the-splash-of-a-drop-1895

The Splash of a Drop (1895) Oct 6, 2016 The transcript of a “Discourse” given at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in 1894, this short text is a delightful study of the physics and aesthetics of splashing drops — phenomena familiar to “any drinker of afternoon tea”. Crediting a “school-boy at Rugby” with making the initial observation “some twenty years ago”, A. M. Worthington describes how fallen drops of mercury, alcohol, and water may appear to be “lying unbroken” but have actually taken part in “violent exercise”, the traces of which can be glimpsed on opaque glass. Examining these traces, which he calls “footprints of the dance”, leads the scientist to wonderfully minute ends: The splash of a drop is a transaction which is accomplished in the twinkling of an eye, and it may seem to some that a man who proposes to discourse on the matter for an hour must have lost all sense of proportion. If that opinion exists, I hope this evening to be able to remove it, and to convince you that we have to deal with an exquisitely regulated phenomenon, and one which very happily illustrates some of the fundamental properties of fluids. The main draw of the book is undoubtedly the mesmerizing series of images — many of which are engravings of photographs — depicting drops at different stages of dissolution. For this, Worthington thanks “the inventors of the sensitive plates”, which have afforded him and his collaborator R. S. Cole “the first really detailed objective views that have been obtained with anything approaching so short an exposure”. For those who are technologically unequipped, he details a lensless process for capturing drops. Before turning to photography, Worthington made use of physiological afterimages. He fabricated a short-duration flashing device and worked in darkness, allowing him to essentially “freeze” the liquid “long enough on the eye for the observer to be able to attend to it”. He would repeat this process until the drawing was complete, and then begin another illustration some .001 seconds later in the drop’s descent. Along with its captivating images, The Splash of a Drop is also notable for illuminating, descriptive prose. During his research, which he calls a “Natural History of Splashes”, Worthington discovers: that drops have dynamic bodies, which morph into a “beautiful beaded annular edge” during collision; how a drop of milk “rides triumphant on the top of the emergent column”; and that this column then “falls back into the middle of a circle of satellites”. These spouting eruptions are now called “Worthington jets” in their researcher’s honor. The Splash of a Drop ends with Worthington not trusting his own eyes. Looking over old drawings of drops, he finds discrepancies with his photographs, which he explains as the imagination’s desire for perfection: “the mind of the observer is filled with an ideal splash—an “Auto-Splash”—whose perfection may never be actually realized.” Absolute darkness, he writes, “and other conditions necessary for photography are not very favourable for direct vision.” R. S. Cole’s elaboration of the photographic process, in an 1894 letter to Nature — which picks up where Worthington left off, “through want of time”, during his discourse at the Royal Institution — is available on archive.org.

public-domain-review

Oct 6, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:12.539795

illustrations-from-a-descriptive-iconography-of-cacti-1841

Illustrations from a Descriptive Iconography of Cacti (1841) Sep 20, 2016 Illustrations of cacti featured in Iconographie descriptive des cactées, ou, Essais systématiques et raisonnés sur l'histoire naturelle, la classification et la culture des plantes de cette famille by French botanist Charles Lemaire. Devoting pretty much his whole career to the study of Cactaceae, Lemaire was also editor of the botanical journals L'Horticulteur Universel and Flore des Serres et des Jardins de l'Europe. Although considered an authority Lemaire lived in semi-poverty for most of his life, never publishing a major work on Cactaceae and never managing to attract the attention of a wealthy sponsor. After his death in 1871, Edouard Andre, his successor as editor of L'Illustration Horticole, said that "Posterity will esteem M. Lemaire more highly than did his contemporaries".

public-domain-review

Sep 20, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:13.141042

the-influence-of-the-blue-ray-of-the-sunlight-and-of-the-blue-color-of-the-sky-1877

The Influence of the Blue Ray of the Sunlight and of the Blue Color of the Sky (1877) Sep 15, 2016 Originally published in 1876, this book is remarkable not only for being the first major work in contemporary chromotherapy, but also for its unique appearance. True to the ideas held within — that blue light is bearer of unique and special properties — the book is entirely printed with blue ink on blue paper. Its author, a retired US Civil War general named Augustus James Pleasonton, proposed that isolating blue wavelengths from the sun could benefit the growth of both flora and fauna, and also help to eradicate disease in humans. The science was shaky at best. Believing that plants flourished in springtime because of the increased blueness of the sky, he patented special greenhouses with blue filters on the glass which he claimed led to particularly abundant grape harvests. From grapes he moved on to pigs and cows, also claiming a vast improvement in growth. Although his ideas were not taken seriously by the scientific establishment it did lead to what became know as the "Blue-glass Craze". Farmers bought the glass by the truck loads, people put it in their spectacles, and baby incubators were clad in the stuff. Echoing similar sentiments about viral trends we find today, of the new fad an exasperated Boston Globe wrote: "Indeed we hope the epidemic will be violent and proportionally short. It is amusing to see people making fools of themselves, but it soon grows wearisome." The newspaper's wishes came largely true as the craze didn't last for more than a couple of years, though it did give birth to the niche field of "chromotherapy". It also gave birth to similar publications, the following year Seth Pancoast bringing out his Blue and Red Light, or, Light and its Rays as Medicine (1877), which echoed Pleasonton's radical design, the pages of blue printed words enclosed within a red border (see below).

public-domain-review

Sep 15, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:13.652829

silent-night-1912

Silent Night (1912) Sep 8, 2016 Rendition of the Christmas favourite, by Elizabeth Spencer, Harry Anthony and James F. Harrison. Towards the end it seems as though they may be singing in another language apart from English, though its not quite clear which (that or they seem to have forgotten the words!).

public-domain-review

Sep 8, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:14.178883

catalogue-from-belcher-mosaic-glass-co-1886

Catalogue from Belcher Mosaic Glass Co. (1886) Apr 19, 2016 Stained glass artist Henry Belcher and his New York based company produced some glorious work, as shown in this 1886 catalogue offering a small taster of their output. The "mosaic" refers to the unique process which Belcher developed and for which he filed more than 20 patents. Instead of the traditional grouting approach, in which individual pieces would be attached together, Belcher's method involved a kind of mould. He'd first lay the various pieces of glass out in a design (hence the "mosaic" aspect), and then sandwich it between two layers of asbestos (picking up the design with a gummed first piece and then closing it with a second). Having earlier made sure there was a gap between each piece of the design, he'd then pour molten lead into the make-shift mould, thus binding the various fragments of the design together. The innovative approach allowed him to create quite stunningly detailed designs. "The designs fell into several categories", writes Barbara Krueger "those with a floral theme; those for use in a transom with a house number; those with neoclassic elements popular in the late 19th century; and several pictorial scenes (fish swimming, flying bats and several with the human figure)." We picked out some highlights below.

public-domain-review

Apr 19, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:15.192543

shakespeare-in-art

Shakespeare in Art Apr 20, 2016 To celebrate the 400th anniversary since the passing of "The Bard" (on 23rd April 1616), we put together some of our favourite images to which his plays have given rise. The artists include William Blake, Henry Fuseli, George Cruikshank, Robert Smirke, and Franz Marc. Enjoy!

public-domain-review

Apr 20, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:15.684008

the-legs-of-the-opera-ca-1862

The Legs of the Opera (ca. 1862) May 24, 2016 An unusual creation from the studio of André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri, the French photographer best known for inventing the hugely popular "carte de visite". In this wonderful example, titled "Les Jambes de l'Opera", Disdéri has created a collage composed entirely of legs belonging to opera (and ballet) stars. Although his patent on the "carte de visite" initially made him extremely wealthy, Disdéri ended up dying a penniless man. His system of reproducing photographs was itself so easy to reproduce that photographers soon did so without Disdéri benefiting, and the format was replaced in the late 60s by the larger cabinet card format.

public-domain-review

May 24, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:16.175622

new-elucidations-of-thomson-s-seasons-1822

New Elucidations of Thomson’s Seasons (1822) Apr 27, 2016 "The Seasons" is a series of four poems written by the Scotsman James Thomson, the first part, Winter, appearing in 1726, and the last, Autumn, in 1730. The poem proved influential across the arts, inspiring musical compositions by both John Christopher Smith and Joseph Haydn, as well as visually in works by Thomas Gainsborough and J. M. W. Turner. One of the lesser known artworks to spring from Thomson's cycle is this light-hearted effort from the pen of Henry James Pidding, a London-based artist specialising in humorous works. For this offering he has taken literal direction from a Shakespeare quote ("suit the action to the word, the word to the action", from Hamlet), and illustrated, portion by portion, a celebrated passage from Thomson's poem Spring, doing his best to twist Thomson's intended meaning whenever he can. Delightful Task! to rear the tender Thought,To teach the young Idea how to shoot,To pour the fresh Instruction o'er the Mind,To breathe th' enlivening spirit, and to fixThe generous Purpose in the glowing Breast. Much of the humour lies in these double meanings, and how they lead often to the pairing of mundane happenings such as cleaning streets with Thomson's bombastic sentiment. There is also a certain darkness to many of the scenes, all exaggerated by the skeleton protagonists who are symbolically at odds to the themes of growth and inspiration to which the lines are dedicated.

public-domain-review

Apr 27, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:16.676895

i-am-the-edison-phonograph-1906

I Am The Edison Phonograph (1906) May 20, 2016 This somewhat unnerving recording would have been heard at most Edison phonograph dealers in the early part of the twentieth century — creating, as it were, a talking machine which advertised itself.

public-domain-review

May 20, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:17.098584

a-traveler-from-altruria-1894

A Traveler from Altruria (1894) Jul 26, 2016 Originally published in instalments in Cosmopolitan, this piece of utopian fiction by William Dean Howells delivers a vision of a "one-class" socialist utopia while at once offering a biting critique of unfettered capitalism. The story centres around a visit to America of Mr Homos, a citizen of a mysterious island called Altruria, which is home to a one-class socialist Christian society, with no monetary system and no concept of the rich and poor. In the course of Mr Homos' visit he is appalled by what he sees occurring in late-19th-century America, a society which he likens to his country's own before "Evolution". He is clearly confused by the class system, continuously embarrassing his hosts — carrying his own luggage, bowing to waitresses, and other such acts — and finds certain activities simply bizarre, for example exercise for its own sake: To us, exercise for exercise would appear stupid. The barren expenditure of force that began and ended in itself, and produced nothing, we should — if you will excuse my saying so — look upon as childish, if not insane or immoral. In Altruria, all people are guaranteed a share of the national product on the condition they work at least three hours a day. In 1894, the year in which Howells' story was published, the fiction attempted to become reality when a Unitarian minister Edward Biron Payne — inspired by the Christian socialist principles espoused by Howells' book — founded "Altruria", a community in Sonoma County, California, which he set up with thirty of his followers. A hotel was started, and orchards provided fruit sold to a shop in Berkeley owned by Job Harriman (who himself set up the commune of Llano del Rio in 1913). Unfortunately, "Altruria" ran into unsurmountable financial troubles and it was abandoned in 1896. Howells would go on though, eventually creating an Altrurian trilogy, with the publication of Letters of an Altrurian Traveller (1904) and Through the Eye of the Needle (1907).

public-domain-review

Jul 26, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:17.444157

to-new-horizons-1940

To New Horizons (1940) Jul 14, 2016 Promotional film from General Motors created to champion their "Highways and Horizons" exhibit at the 1939-40 New York World's Fair. The film presents a vision of the future, namely of 1960 seen through the eyes of those living in 1940, and imagines the world of tomorrow which the narrator describes as "A greater world, a better world, a world which always will grow forward". The 1939-40 New York World's Fair was the first to focus on the future and the General Motors's Futurama exhibit consisted of a ride carrying 552 people at a time and showing a diorama designed by Norman Bel Geddes wherein the roads and city planning of the future include elevated pedestrian walkways as well as highways with 7 lanes for cars traveling at different speeds. The exhibit was a hit and easily became the most popular event among the visitors as the promise of a brighter future was welcomed by the Americans who had experienced the Great Depression. Of course, the next five years — which saw war rage across the world on an unprecedented scale — would bring anything but this utopian vision.

public-domain-review

Jul 14, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:17.902383

max-bruckner-s-collection-of-polyhedral-models-1900

Max Brückner’s Collection of Polyhedral Models (1900) Jun 21, 2016 Max Brückner (1860–1934) was a German geometer, known for his collection of stellated and uniform polyhedra, which he documented in his 1900 book Vielecke und Vielflache: Theorie und Geschichte (Polygons and Polyhedra: Theory and History). Included in the influential study was a compound of three octahedra, made famous by M. C. Escher's 1948 print Stars, which depicts the shape floating through space in the form of a cage with two chameleons inside it.

public-domain-review

Jun 21, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:18.403993

the-map-that-changed-the-middle-east-1916

The Map That Changed the Middle East (1916) May 16, 2016 The Sykes–Picot Agreement map: the map that changed the Middle East. It was an enclosure in the French ambassador Paul Cambon's letter to Sir Edward Grey, dated 9th May 1916. Seven days later the two would sign the Sykes–Picot Agreement, a secret agreement between the the UK and France outlining, according to the lines on the map, how they would carve up the Middle East should the Ottoman Empire be defeated in the First World War. The Ottomans were indeed defeated two years later and the rest, as they say, is history: a complicated, sad, and very bloody history. Learn more about the agreement, the map, and their consequences in David Fromkin's highly recommended A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East (1989). You can also check out the fairly thorough Wikipedia entry here.

public-domain-review

May 16, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:18.907799

the-magic-roses-1906

The Magic Roses (1906) Jun 2, 2016 A film by the pioneering Spanish film director and cinematographer Segundo Chomón. With his innovative use of early splice-based tricks and a penchant for optical illusions he is often compared to the slightly earlier Georges Méliès, and indeed has been dubbed "The Spanish Méliès" by some. Though the similarities are clear, Chomón departs from Méliès in his variety of subjects and his use of animation, an art form he played a key role in developing. In this beautifully coloured short (using Pochoir, a type of stencil process), originally titled Les Roses Magique, a bouquet of roses gives birth to a whole unexpected world, played out against a wonderful floral backdrop.

public-domain-review

Jun 2, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:19.367333

emanuel-swedenborg-s-journal-of-dreams-and-spiritual-experiences-in-the-year-1744-1918

Emanuel Swedenborg’s Journal of Dreams and Spiritual Experiences in the Year 1744 (1918) May 11, 2016 Lesser known among the many works of the eighteenth-century Swedish scientist, philosopher, religious teacher and visionary Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) is his private Drömbok (variously translated into English as Journal of Dreams or Dream Diary). Attracting less attention than his other journals, from later years, this "octavo pocket book, (6.5 by 4 inches), bound in parchment and containing 104 written pages" was lost for many years, only found in 1849 in the library of an apparent "enemy" of Swedenborg's, R. Scheringson, professor and lector in the city of Westeras. Its contents cover a period from July 1743 until October 1744, a time of crisis for Swedenborg, transitioning as he was from life as a scientist and mining engineer to one as a "revelator" and seer. It begins as a simple travel diary, describing his leaving Sweden, crossing the Baltic to Stralsund and then journeying through Hamburg and Bremen to the Netherlands. After some undated fragments it resumes at the end of March 1744. A week or so later during Easter weekend, in what is probably the most significant part of the Journal, Swedenborg describes in detail a vision of Christ he had while staying in Delft. Among the heavenly visions come other scenes both mundane and fantastical: a cast of various dogs, Kings, an executioner with his heads, dragons, a talking ox, and an abstract apparition of an oblong globe. There are also many women and, somewhat controversially, several dreams that are erotic in content. In one vivid dream, no. 171, Swedenborg finds himself in bed with a woman. She touches his penis with her hand and he has an erection, bigger than he has ever had. He penetrates her, reflecting that a child must come of this, and writes that he got off en merveille. (He uses the French expression in the original.) In a remarkable dream (no. 120) he is lying with a woman who was not beautiful but who pleased him. He touched her vagina and discovered that it had a set of teeth. Suddenly this woman assumes the form of a man, the politician Johan Archenholtz, a friend and ally of Swedenborg’s. The image of the vagina dentata (vagina with teeth) appears again in no. 261 where he sees in a vision a fiercely burning coal fire that represents the "fire of love". Then he is with a woman whom he wants to penetrate, but the teeth prevent him entering her. In R. L. Tafel's early English translation this erotic material was omitted, and it wasn’t until C.Th. Odhner’s translation published in 1918 (featured above), that the offending passages were reinstated, albeit in the guise of Latin. Learn more about his dream diary, and the saucy visions within, in our essay by Richard Lines here.

public-domain-review

May 11, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:19.883881

the-steps-of-life

The Steps of Life May 31, 2016 The idea of a human's life being divisible into distinct stages has been around for millennia, a recurring theme in the literature and art running through all historical periods and places. The early Greeks were particularly fond of the idea, the earliest reference being from lawmaker, and poet Solon (ca. 600 BC), who had ten stages of seven years each. Hippocrates (ca. 450 BC) had seven stages, while Aristotle (ca. 350 BC) spoke of three: youth, prime of life, and old age. The idea is, however, perhaps made most famous by William Shakespeare who has Jacques in As You Like It speak some of The Bard's most famous lines: All the world’s a stage,And all the men and women merely players.They have their exits and their entrances,And one man in his time plays many parts,His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.Then, the whining school-boy with his satchelAnd shining morning face, creeping like a snailUnwillingly to school. And then the lover,Sighing like furnace, with a woeful balladMade to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then, a soldier,Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel,Seeking the bubble reputationEven in the cannon’s mouth. And then, the justice,In fair round belly, with a good capon lin’d,With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,Full of wise saws, and modern instances,And so he plays his part. The sixth age shiftsInto the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,His youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wideFor his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,Turning again toward childish treble, pipesAnd whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,That ends this strange eventful history,Is second childishness and mere oblivion,Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything In addition to literature, the idea of life's divisible course has been the fount for some wonderful imagery, most depicting the different ages as ascending then descending a series of steps: what in the German tradition became known as "Lebenstreppe" or "Stufenalter" (which can be traced back to Jörg Breu's 15th-century effort). As perhaps is to be expected, given the inevitable end point, the scythe-wielding figure of death is to be found lurking in most images ("under the stairs", as it were). Come the 19th century the format was also used in a number of satires: from the progress of a drunkard to the toils of the political life. In rough chronological order, we present a selection of highlights below, from the 14th to the early 20th century.

public-domain-review

May 31, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:20.412042

celestial-phenomenon-over-nuremberg-april-14th-1561

Celestial Phenomenon Over Nuremberg, April 14th, 1561 Apr 14, 2016 As the sun rose on April 14, 1561, over the German city of Nuremberg, the residents saw what they described as some kind of aerial battle take place in its glare — complete with the erratic dance of orbs, crosses, cylinders, and the appearance of a large and mysterious black arrow-shaped object — all followed by a crash-landing somewhere beyond the city limits. Later that month, local artist Hans Glaser produced a broadsheet (pictured above) offering a woodcut engraving of the scene, and a detailed description of what was witnessed. The text reads: In the morning of April 14, 1561, at daybreak, between 4 and 5 a.m., a dreadful apparition occurred on the sun, and then this was seen in Nuremberg in the city, before the gates and in the country – by many men and women. At first there appeared in the middle of the sun two blood-red semi-circular arcs, just like the moon in its last quarter. And in the sun, above and below and on both sides, the color was blood, there stood a round ball of partly dull, partly black ferrous color. Likewise there stood on both sides and as a torus about the sun such blood-red ones and other balls in large number, about three in a line and four in a square, also some alone. In between these globes there were visible a few blood-red crosses, between which there were blood-red strips, becoming thicker to the rear and in the front malleable like the rods of reed-grass, which were intermingled, among them two big rods, one on the right, the other to the left, and within the small and big rods there were three, also four and more globes. These all started to fight among themselves, so that the globes, which were first in the sun, flew out to the ones standing on both sides, thereafter, the globes standing outside the sun, in the small and large rods, flew into the sun. Besides the globes flew back and forth among themselves and fought vehemently with each other for over an hour. And when the conflict in and again out of the sun was most intense, they became fatigued to such an extent that they all, as said above, fell from the sun down upon the earth ‘as if they all burned’ and they then wasted away on the earth with immense smoke. After all this there was something like a black spear, very long and thick, sighted; the shaft pointed to the east, the point pointed west. Whatever such signs mean, God alone knows. Although we have seen, shortly one after another, many kinds of signs on the heaven, which are sent to us by the almighty God, to bring us to repentance, we still are, unfortunately, so ungrateful that we despise such high signs and miracles of God. Or we speak of them with ridicule and discard them to the wind, in order that God may send us a frightening punishment on account of our ungratefulness. After all, the God-fearing will by no means discard these signs, but will take it to heart as a warning of their merciful Father in heaven, will mend their lives and faithfully beg God, that He may avert His wrath, including the well-deserved punishment, on us, so that we may temporarily here and perpetually there, live as his children. For it, may God grant us his help, Amen. By Hanns Glaser, letter-painter of Nurnberg. Interpreted religiously at the time, more recently some have considered the event an early sighting of extraterrestrial beings — the witnessing of some kind of alien spaceship battle occurring in the Bavarian skies. Although one, perhaps, shouldn't entirely rule out such a far-fetched interpretation, it is more likely that what the good people of Nuremberg witnessed that morning, and subsequently elaborated upon, was a natural meteorological phenomenon (possibly "sundogs", or to give them their scientific term, "parhelia"?). Another interesting idea relates to the fact that a year earlier Vannoccio Biringuccio published De La Pirotechnia, Europe's first book on metallurgy which contained several chapters on the preparation and use of rockets in warfare and festivals. Could this Italian book have made its way to the hands of a Nuremberg resident keen to try out the firework recipes it included? This mysterious event in Nuremberg, and its depiction in Glaser's broadsheet, would go largely unmentioned until the twentieth century, when it appeared in Carl Jung's 1958 work Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies. For more on sixteenth-century broadsheets depicting wondrous, celestial events see our post here.

public-domain-review

Apr 14, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:20.882658

raja-harishchandra-1913

Raja Harishchandra (1913) May 3, 2016 Directed and produced by Dadasaheb Phalke, the "father of Indian Cinema", this 40-minute-long silent film is the very first full-length Indian feature — the beginning of Bollywood. The narrative of the film is based on the eponymous legend recounted in the Sanskrit epics Ramayana and Mahabharata. The story centres around the hero Harishchandra, a noble king, who, to honour his promise to the sage Vishwamitra, sacrifices his kingdom, his wife, and eventually also his children. By the end, however, having pleased the Gods with his actions, Harishchandra's former glory is restored. Phalke was apparently inspired to make films after watching the French film The Life of Christ (1902), twice in one day. He quit his job at a printing press and went to London to learn the technical ins and outs of making a film. Returning to India, he pledged in his life-assurance policies and his wife sold her jewellery to raise the capital needed. Struggling to find women willing to act in the film, Phalke had to instead cast men in the female roles, including Anna Salunke as Harishchandra's wife. Salunke — who worked in a restaurant as a cook before Phalke gave him his role in Raja Harishchandra — would later play both Rama and Sita in Phalke's 1917 film Lanka Dahan and become the most well known actor/actress of his time. Unfortunately, Raja Harishchandra only exists now in fragments (1475 feet of it), which you can see above, with both Hindi and English intertitles.

public-domain-review

May 3, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:21.322824

hypnotism-posters-ca-1900

Hypnotism Posters (ca. 1900) May 10, 2016 A set of amusing turn-of-the-century hypnotism posters showing hypnotised people up to various strange shenanigans: a group of men wield brooms and umbrellas as though musical instruments; women ride men like horses; and (remembering that it is more than a century ago) a man dresses in women's clothes, and two men canoodle. With its roots in "mesmerism", the phenomena of hypnotism began to gain momentum with the work of Scottish surgeon James Braid (1795–1860), an early pioneer of the practice, paving the way for it to hit the mainstream toward the end of the nineteenth century. There is not much information available about these five images below, only that they were the product of The Donaldson Lithographing Co. based in Newport, Kentucky and seem to be from around 1900.

public-domain-review

May 10, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:21.799866

my-experiences-in-a-lunatic-asylum-1879

My Experiences in a Lunatic Asylum (1879) Jul 13, 2016 In February 1875, the barrister and author Herman Charles Merivale (1839-1906) was committed to Ticehurst in Sussex, a private lunatic asylum owned and run by the Newington family since 1792. Having suffered from what would nowadays be deemed as depression, Merivale spent almost seven months at Ticehurst where his mental state, intake of food, as well as his sleeping habits were recorded in a casebook. After initially being released in September 1875, he returned to the asylum within a year on account of suicidal tendencies and was later transferred out of the hospital in 1877 although his condition had not improved. In his book, published in 1879 under the pseudonym of "A Sane Patient", Merivale tells of his first night: I was therefore ‘removed,’ half-dying, in a state of semi-consciousness, I can scarcely remember how, to the castellated mansion mentioned in my first chapter. The wrong should have been impossible, of course; but it is possible, and it is law. My liberty, and my very existence as an individual being, had been signed away behind my back. In my weakened perceptions I at first thought that the mansion was an hotel. Left alone in a big room on the first evening, I was puzzled by the entrance of a wild-looking man, who described figures in the air with his hand, to an accompaniment of gibber, ate a pudding with his fingers at the other end of a long table, and retired. My nerve was shaken to its weakest, remember; and I was alone with him! It was not an hotel. It was a lunatic asylum. Later he speaks of how, although the food and recreational activities offered at the asylum could not be faulted, he knew that he was in the wrong place. All this bears so fair an outside that it seems difficult to quarrel with it. Yet the life that it concealed was inconceivably terrible. My head was full of the weakest, the most varying, the most wandering fancies — the fancies of sheer and long-continued exhaustion. These parties, games, entertainments, meals, without a friend's face near me, without hope, wish, or volition; with the shouts and cries of the really violent to wake me sometimes at night; with every form of personal affliction to haunt and mock and yet companion me by day; with poor fellows playing all sorts of strange antics round me, herded together anyhow or nohow, with or without private rooms of their own — more, I'm afraid, in proportion as their friends could or would pay for them or not [...], with Death in the house every now and then, falling suddenly and terribly on one of these unhappy outcasts from some unsuspected malady within, which they could not explain, spoken of in whispers, and hushed up and forgotten as soon as might be, [...] the story makes me shrink in the telling, and almost regret that I have undertaken to tell it. My Experiences in a Lunatic Asylum is one of many similar tales (e.g. Clarissa Caldwell Lathrop's A Secret Institution, 1890) which echoed and fed the fear rife in Victorian Britain of being falsely confined in such private asylums. Merivale's pamphlet perhaps stands out from others, however, in its literary stature, coming from the pen of an author who counted amongst his friends William Makepeace Thackeray, Matthew Arnold, Anthony Trollope, Charles Dickens and others.

public-domain-review

Jul 13, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:22.311165

the-difficulty-of-ruling-over-a-diverse-nation-1578

The Difficulty of Ruling over a Diverse Nation (1578) Jun 9, 2016 16th-century Dutch engraving depicting a fantastical animal with the heads of various other animals sprouting from its body: an allegory for the difficulty of ruling over a diverse nation. In the background, watching on, can be seen a small mob or leaders, both secular and religious. This work by Antwerp-based artist Pieter van der Borcht the Elder, with its image of a confused and troubled body politic, is perhaps just as relevant now as it was then.

public-domain-review

Jun 9, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:22.804512

the-singerie-monkeys-acting-as-humans-in-art

The Singerie: Monkeys acting as Humans in Art Jul 19, 2016 Singerie — from the French for "Monkey Trick" — is a genre of art in which monkeys are depicted apeing human behaviour. Although the practise can be traced as far back as Ancient Egypt, it wasn't until the 16th century that the idea really took off and emerged as a distinct genre. Some of its most famous champions include the Flemish engraver Pieter van der Borcht (whose 1575 series of singerie prints were widely disseminated), Jan Brueghel the Elder, and the the two Teniers brothers, David Teniers the Younger and his younger brother Abraham Teniers. Into the 18th century the genre saw great popularity in France, particularly in the guise of the “singe peintre” (monkey painter), which offered up a perfect parody of the art world’s pomposity. With monkeys, along with apes, being our closest cognates in the animal world, they proved the perfect medium for the satirising of society, which so often thinks itself “above” the animal kingdom. Singeries have proved popular all the way into the 21st century, notably in the fantastic work of the American artist Walton Ford.

public-domain-review

Jul 19, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:23.309027

a-vision-of-isolating-technology-from-1906

A Vision of Isolating Technology from 1906 Jul 27, 2016 Replace these "wireless telegraphs" with smartphones, update the dress a little, and this vision from a 1906 issue of Punch magazine could easily be for 110 years in the future. Part of a series of "forecasts" for the year to come, the caption reads: “These two figures are not communicating with one another. The lady receives an amatory message, and the gentleman some racing results.” It's a reminder that the idea of technology leading to a breakdown in "authentic" human interaction is a worry not solely limited to our age. Punch seemed to have a knack for uncanny predictions of distant technologies to come. See for example this vision of the Skype-like "Telephonoscope" from 1879.

public-domain-review

Jul 27, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:23.753208

fables-for-the-frivolous-1899

Fables for the Frivolous (1899) Jun 8, 2016 One of the earliest works by the American parodist Guy Wetmore Carryl, this collection of fables are adapted from Jean de La Fontaine's Aesop-style originals from more than 200 years earlier. Carryl's light-hearted re-tellings are rendered in verse, each ending without fail with a moral and a (normally dubious) pun. This particular edition benefits also from a series of illustrations by the wonderful Peter Newell. As well as this take off of Fontaine, Carryl also leant his parodying pen to Grimm's Fairy Tales, including “How Little Red Riding Hood Came To Be Eaten” and “How Fair Cinderella Disposed of Her Shoe”.

public-domain-review

Jun 8, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:24.184392

album-of-seaweed-pictures-1848

Album of Seaweed Pictures (1848) Jun 14, 2016 The art of arranging marine algae into designs, bouquets, and even sometimes intricate little scenes, was surprisingly popular in the nineteenth century. The particularly fine examples featured here, using doilies as frames, are from an album presented to Augustus Graham, a member of the first board of directors of the Brooklyn Apprentice's Library, later to become the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences and the Brooklyn Museum. Graham also served as the first president of the Institute of Arts and Sciences between 1840-1851 and the album was given to him as a thank you in recognition of his work. Made by a woman named Eliza A. Jordson, it contains – apart from the specimens of seaweed – an essay on the method of transferring the algae to paper, as well as a poem on the "flowers of the sea". Ah! call us not weeds — We are flowers of the sea For lovely and bright And gay tinted are we — We are quite independent Of culture and showers Then call us not weeds We are oceans's gay flowers. Variations on the poem crop up time and again in other examples of seaweed pictures, and it is even mentioned in Jane Austen's unfinished 1817 novel Sandition when a seaweed picture is spied through the window of a shop. Its provenance is not entirely clear, though sources seem to imply it is possibly the work of E. L. Aveline.

public-domain-review

Jun 14, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:24.698195

marvels-of-things-created-and-miraculous-aspects-of-things-existing

Marvels of Things Created and Miraculous Aspects of Things Existing Jun 28, 2016 Images from an illustrated version of a 13th-century Arabic treatise by Zakariya al-Qazwini titled ‘Ajā’ib al-makhlūqāt wa-gharā’ib al-mawjūdāt (Marvels of Things Created and Miraculous Aspects of Things Existing). The text is probably the best known example of ‘ajā’ib or ‘jā’ib al-makhlūqāt literature, a genre of classical Islamic literature that was concerned with "mirabilia": cosmographical and geographical topics that challenged understanding. Al-Qazwini's treatise explored an eclectic mix of topics, from humans and their anatomy to strange mythical creatures; from plants and animals to constellations of stars and zodiacal signs. The treatise was extremely popular and was frequently illustrated over the centuries into both Persian and Turkish. The images featured here are from an exquisitely illustrated Persian translation, thought to hail from 17th-century Mughal India. For more info see the note on the US National Library of Medicine website.

public-domain-review

Jun 28, 2016

collection

2024-05-01T21:45:25.023711

guess-me-1879

Guess Me (1879) Jun 22, 2016 Illustrated by George Cruikshank among others, this example of good old-fashioned and wholesome entertainment offers a collection of enigmas, conundrums, acrostics, "decapitations", and a series of incredibly tricky rebuses. The preface explains that an enigma can have many solutions whereas a conundrum only has one, and that "The essence of a good conundrum is to be found in its answer, which should be itself something of a pun, a puzzle, or an epigram, an inversion of the regular and ordinary meaning of the word." Some of the 631 conundrums included in the book: Why is a clock always bashful? – Because its hands are ever before its face.Why are persons fatigued, like a wheel? – Because they are tired.Why are good resolutions like fainting ladies? – They want carrying out.When is a kiss like rumour? – When it goes from mouth to mouth. Perhaps the highlight of the book are the rebuses — called here "hieroglyphics" — the solving of which vary from difficult to near on impossible. Some highlights below.

public-domain-review

Jun 22, 2016

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2024-05-01T21:45:25.490758

comparative-physiognomy-or-resemblances-between-men-and-animals-1852

Comparative Physiognomy: or, Resemblances Between Men and Animals (1852) Text by Hunter Dukes Apr 26, 2016 Typhoon (1902) by Joseph Conrad opens with a simultaneous description of Captain MacWhirr’s face and character: he “had a physiognomy that, in the order of material appearances, was the exact counterpart of his mind: it presented no marked characteristics of firmness or stupidity; it had no pronounced characteristics whatever; it was simply ordinary, irresponsive, and unruffled.” A particularly popular idea in the nineteenth century, physiognomy — the belief that one could equate facial characteristics with moral and intellectual character — belonged to a cluster of sciences all predicated on an almost premodern notion: that the qualities and properties of people and objects can be divined through appearance. Phrenology, craniometry, chiromancy (palm reading), dactylography (the study of fingerprints), and graphology shared a central anthropometric tenet: “that the unseen state of a person’s soul makes itself manifest through their physical body in the form of readable signatures.” A classic of the genre, Comparative Physiognomy by U.S. physician James W. Redfield carried forward the work of Swiss pastor Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801), often credited as the father of physiognomy, who, following Aristotle, believed that asinine humans literally resembled asses — “Long ears are a sign that their possessor is extremely foppish, both in language and action” — and that the difference between frogs and gods was a matter of countenance. While, according to Brian Bantum, Lavater’s work “never explicitly invok[ed] racial nomenclature”, it nevertheless articulated “a theological vision of an ideal Christian body, a saint, as a white male body”. What was implicit for Lavater becomes explicit in Redfield’s Comparative Physiognomy, a book informed by the intersection of evolutionary theory, eugenics, and the emergence of “racial anthropology” in the nineteenth century, which sought to hierarchize human beings through physical appearance. As its title implies, the book is concerned with comparing animals and human faces, clustered by nation and ethnic groups. A quick glance at the content page gives a sense of the endeavor. The specific pairings tell their own story of the racist inclinations simmering below the surface, but also consign the project to an absurd realm of cultural constructivism from the get-go. Redfield’s logic for comparing Turks to turkeys turns on a homonymic coincidence in English absent from the etymology of “Turk”. Nevertheless, the physiognomist claims that the “turkey is too much like the Turk (who seems to be entirely unconscious of the position in which we have placed him)”. The “we” here is telling. The Germans, "Yankees", and British land a trio of animals associated with strength: lions, bears, and bulls respectively. Others are “placed” by Redfield into unfortunate comparisons with the lesser qualities mice, fish, and camels. Reading Comparative Physiognomy, it quickly becomes apparent why this “science” and its anthropometric cousins found European and American champions during the New Imperial era. It’s easier to justify economic extraction and civilizing missions when you are dealing with beasts.

public-domain-review

Apr 26, 2016

Hunter Dukes

collection

2024-05-01T21:45:25.909122

paintings-in-proust-vol-1-swann-s-way

Paintings in Proust (Vol. 1, Swann’s Way) Text by Adam Green Nov 14, 2013 November 14th, 2013, marked 100 years since Marcel Proust published Du côté de chez Swann (Swann's Way), the first volume of A la recherche du temps perdu, his masterwork written from 1909 to 1922, largely at night in the silence of a cork-lined room. Throughout the seven volume long searching tour through his memories - in his attempts to describe scenes and emotions, to help elucidate a point, sharpen an image, or as simply a subject in itself - Proust would time and again turn to the visual arts. As Proust says in the novel, “It is only through art that we can escape from ourselves and know how another person sees a universe which is not the same as our own and whose landscapes would otherwise have remained as unknown as any there may be on the moon.” He mentions more than a hundred painters from the 14th through the 20th century making, as the artist Eric Karpeles points out, “one of the most profoundly visual works in Western literature.” As a celebration of the centennial we have put together a few highlights of Proust's many mentions of artworks to be found in the first volume, Swann's Way, in which the narrator recounts his experiences growing up, participating in society, falling in love, and learning about art. The translations are from C.K. Scott Moncrieff's English translation (available here on project Gutenberg, in the public domain). We are indebted also to the excellent Paintings in Proust by Eric Karpeles, for helping us greatly in identifying the various mentions of artworks - a highly recommended book. Giotto's Charity, Envy and Justice In the year in which we ate such quantities of asparagus, the kitchen-maid whose duty it was to dress them was a poor sickly creature, some way 'gone' in pregnancy when we arrived at Combray for Easter, and it was indeed surprising that Françoise allowed her to run so many errands in the town and to do so much work in the house, for she was beginning to find a difficulty in bearing before her the mysterious casket, fuller and larger every day, whose splendid outline could be detected through the folds of her ample smocks. These last recalled the cloaks in which Giotto shrouds some of the allegorical figures in his paintings, of which M. Swann had given me photographs. He it was who pointed out the resemblance, and when he inquired after the kitchen-maid he would say: "Well, how goes it with Giotto's Charity?" And indeed the poor girl, whose pregnancy had swelled and stoutened every part of her, even to her face, and the vertical, squared outlines of her cheeks, did distinctly suggest those virgins, so strong and mannish as to seem matrons rather, in whom the Virtues are personified in the Arena Chapel. And I can see now that those Virtues and Vices of Padua resembled her in another respect as well. For just as the figure of this girl had been enlarged by the additional symbol which she carried in her body, without appearing to understand what it meant, without any rendering in her facial expression of all its beauty and spiritual significance, but carried as if it were an ordinary and rather heavy burden, so it is without any apparent suspicion of what she is about that the powerfully built housewife who is portrayed in the Arena beneath the label 'Caritas,' and a reproduction of whose portrait hung upon the wall of my schoolroom at Combray, incarnates that virtue, for it seems impossible, that any thought of charity can ever have found expression in her vulgar and energetic face. By a fine stroke of the painter's invention she is tumbling all the treasures of the earth at her feet, but exactly as if she were treading grapes in a wine-press to extract their juice, or, still more, as if she had climbed on a heap of sacks to raise herself higher; and she is holding out her flaming heart to God, or shall we say 'handing' it to Him, exactly as a cook might hand up a corkscrew through the skylight of her underground kitchen to some one who had called down to ask her for it from the ground-level above. The 'Invidia,' again, should have had some look on her face of envy. But in this fresco, too, the symbol occupies so large a place and is represented with such realism; the serpent hissing between the lips of Envy is so huge, and so completely fills her wide-opened mouth that the muscles of her face are strained and contorted, like a child's who is filling a balloon with his breath, and that Envy, and we ourselves for that matter, when we look at her, since all her attention and ours are concentrated on the action of her lips, have no time, almost, to spare for envious thoughts. Despite all the admiration that M. Swann might profess for these figures of Giotto, it was a long time before I could find any pleasure in seeing in our schoolroom (where the copies he had brought me were hung) that Charity devoid of charity, that Envy who looked like nothing so much as a plate in some medical book, illustrating the compression of the glottis or uvula by a tumour in the tongue, or by the introduction of the operator's instrument, a Justice whose greyish and meanly regular features were the very same as those which adorned the faces of certain good and pious and slightly withered ladies of Combray whom I used to see at mass, many of whom had long been enrolled in the reserve forces of Injustice. But in later years I understood that the arresting strangeness, the special beauty of these frescoes lay in the great part played in each of them by its symbols, while the fact that these were depicted, not as symbols (for the thought symbolised was nowhere expressed), but as real things, actually felt or materially handled, added something more precise and more literal to their meaning, something more concrete and more striking to the lesson they imparted. And even in the case of the poor kitchen-maid, was not our attention incessantly drawn to her belly by the load which filled it; and in the same way, again, are not the thoughts of men and women in the agony of death often turned towards the practical, painful, obscure, internal, intestinal aspect, towards that 'seamy side' of death which is, as it happens, the side that death actually presents to them and forces them to feel, a side which far more closely resembles a crushing burden, a difficulty in breathing, a destroying thirst, than the abstract idea to which we are accustomed to give the name of Death? Charles Gleyre's Lost Illusions Sometimes in the afternoon sky a white moon would creep up like a little cloud, furtive, without display, suggesting an actress who does not have to 'come on' for a while, and so goes 'in front' in her ordinary clothes to watch the rest of the company for a moment, but keeps in the background, not wishing to attract attention to herself. I was glad to find her image reproduced in books and paintings, though these works of art were very different—at least in my earlier years, before Bloch had attuned my eyes and mind to more subtle harmonies—from those in which the moon seems fair to me to-day, but in which I should not have recognised her then. It might be, for instance, some novel by Saintine, some landscape by Gleyre, in which she is cut out sharply against the sky, in the form of a silver sickle, some work as unsophisticated and as incomplete as were, at that date, my own impressions, and which it enraged my grandmother's sisters to see me admire. Pieter de Hooch's Interiors He would enter the drawing-room; and there, while Mme. Verdurin, pointing to the roses which he had sent her that morning, said: "I am furious with you!" and sent him to the place kept for him, by the side of Odette, the pianist would play to them—for their two selves, and for no one else—that little phrase by Vinteuil which was, so to speak, the national anthem of their love. He began, always, with a sustained tremolo from the violin part, which, for several bars, was unaccompanied, and filled all the foreground; until suddenly it seemed to be drawn aside, and—just as in those interiors by Pieter de Hooch, where the subject is set back a long way through the narrow framework of a half-opened door—infinitely remote, in colour quite different, velvety with the radiance of some intervening light, the little phrase appeared, dancing, pastoral, interpolated, episodic, belonging to another world. Sandro Boticelli's Trial of Moses He stood gazing at her; traces of the old fresco were apparent in her face and limbs, and these he tried incessantly, afterwards, to recapture, both when he was with Odette, and when he was only thinking of her in her absence; and, albeit his admiration for the Florentine masterpiece was probably based upon his discovery that it had been reproduced in her, the similarity enhanced her beauty also, and rendered her more precious in his sight. Swann reproached himself with his failure, hitherto, to estimate at her true worth a creature whom the great Sandro would have adored, and counted himself fortunate that his pleasure in the contemplation of Odette found a justification in his own system of aesthetic. He told himself that, in choosing the thought of Odette as the inspiration of his dreams of ideal happiness, he was not, as he had until then supposed, falling back, merely, upon an expedient of doubtful and certainly inadequate value, since she contained in herself what satisfied the utmost refinement of his taste in art. He failed to observe that this quality would not naturally avail to bring Odette into the category of women whom he found desirable, simply because his desires had always run counter to his aesthetic taste. The words 'Florentine painting' were invaluable to Swann. They enabled him (gave him, as it were, a legal title) to introduce the image of Odette into a world of dreams and fancies which, until then, she had been debarred from entering, and where she assumed a new and nobler form. And whereas the mere sight of her in the flesh, by perpetually reviving his misgivings as to the quality of her face, her figure, the whole of her beauty, used to cool the ardour of his love, those misgivings were swept away and that love confirmed now that he could re-erect his estimate of her on the sure foundations of his aesthetic principles; while the kiss, the bodily surrender which would have seemed natural and but moderately attractive, had they been granted him by a creature of somewhat withered flesh and sluggish blood, coming, as now they came, to crown his adoration of a masterpiece in a gallery, must, it seemed, prove as exquisite as they would be supernatural. And when he was tempted to regret that, for months past, he had done nothing but visit Odette, he would assure himself that he was not unreasonable in giving up much of his time to the study of an inestimably precious work of art, cast for once in a new, a different, an especially charming metal, in an unmatched exemplar which he would contemplate at one moment with the humble, spiritual, disinterested mind of an artist, at another with the pride, the selfishness, the sensual thrill of a collector. On his study table, at which he worked, he had placed, as it were a photograph of Odette, a reproduction of Jethro's Daughter. He would gaze in admiration at the large eyes, the delicate features in which the imperfection of her skin might be surmised, the marvellous locks of hair that fell along her tired cheeks; and, adapting what he had already felt to be beautiful, on aesthetic grounds, to the idea of a living woman, he converted it into a series of physical merits which he congratulated himself on finding assembled in the person of one whom he might, ultimately, possess. The vague feeling of sympathy which attracts a spectator to a work of art, now that he knew the type, in warm flesh and blood, of Jethro's Daughter, became a desire which more than compensated, thenceforward, for that with which Odette's physical charms had at first failed to inspire him. When he had sat for a long time gazing at the Botticelli, he would think of his own living Botticelli, who seemed all the lovelier in contrast, and as he drew towards him the photograph of Zipporah he would imagine that he was holding Odette against his heart.... Or else she would look at him sulkily, and he would see once again a face worthy to figure in Botticelli's 'Life of Moses,' he would place it there, giving to Odette's neck the necessary inclination; and when he had finished her portrait in distemper, in the fifteenth century, on the wall of the Sixtine, the idea that she was, none the less, in the room with him still, by the piano, at that very moment, ready to be kissed and won, the idea of her material existence, of her being alive, would sweep over him with so violent an intoxication that, with eyes starting from his head and jaws that parted as though to devour her, he would fling himself upon this Botticelli maiden and kiss and bite her cheeks. Giotto's Panels When my father had decided, one year, that we should go for the Easter holidays to Florence and Venice, not finding room to introduce into the name of Florence the elements that ordinarily constitute a town, I was obliged to let a supernatural city emerge from the impregnation by certain vernal scenes of what I supposed to be, in its essentials, the genius of Giotto. All the more—and because one cannot make a name extend much further in time than in space—like some of Giotto's paintings themselves which shew us at two separate moments the same person engaged in different actions, here lying on his bed, there just about to mount his horse, the name of Florence was divided into two compartments. In one, beneath an architectural dais, I gazed upon a fresco over which was partly drawn a curtain of morning sunlight, dusty, aslant, and gradually spreading; in the other (for, since I thought of names not as an inaccessible ideal but as a real and enveloping substance into which I was about to plunge, the life not yet lived, the life intact and pure which I enclosed in them, gave to the most material pleasures, to the simplest scenes, the same attraction that they have in the works of the Primitives), I moved swiftly—so as to arrive, as soon as might be, at the table that was spread for me, with fruit and a flask of Chianti—across a Ponte Vecchio heaped with jonquils, narcissi and anemones. That (for all that I was still in Paris) was what I saw, and not what was actually round about me. Even from the simplest, the most realistic point of view, the countries for which we long occupy, at any given moment, a far larger place in our true life than the country in which we may happen to be. Doubtless, if, at that time, I had paid more attention to what was in my mind when I pronounced the words "going to Florence, to Parma, to Pisa, to Venice," I should have realised that what I saw was in no sense a town, but something as different from anything that I knew, something as delicious as might be for a human race whose whole existence had passed in a series of late winter afternoons, that inconceivable marvel, a morning in spring. Nicolas Poussin's Spring, or the Earthly Paradise The name Gilberte passed close by me, evoking all the more forcibly her whom it labelled in that it did not merely refer to her, as one speaks of a man in his absence, but was directly addressed to her; it passed thus close by me, in action, so to speak, with a force that increased with the curve of its trajectory and as it drew near to its target;—carrying in its wake, I could feel, the knowledge, the impression of her to whom it was addressed that belonged not to me but to the friend who called to her, everything that, while she uttered the words, she more or less vividly reviewed, possessed in her memory, of their daily intimacy, of the visits that they paid to each other, of that unknown existence which was all the more inaccessible, all the more painful to me from being, conversely, so familiar, so tractable to this happy girl who let her message brush past me without my being able to penetrate its surface, who flung it on the air with a light-hearted cry: letting float in the atmosphere the delicious attar which that message had distilled, by touching them with precision, from certain invisible points in Mlle. Swann's life, from the evening to come, as it would be, after dinner, at her home,—forming, on its celestial passage through the midst of the children and their nursemaids, a little cloud, exquisitely coloured, like the cloud that, curling over one of Poussin's gardens, reflects minutely, like a cloud in the opera, teeming with chariots and horses, some apparition of the life of the gods; casting, finally, on that ragged grass, at the spot on which she stood (at once a scrap of withered lawn and a moment in the afternoon of the fair player, who continued to beat up and catch her shuttlecock until a governess, with a blue feather in her hat, had called her away) a marvellous little band of light, of the colour of heliotrope, spread over the lawn like a carpet on which I could not tire of treading to and fro with lingering feet, nostalgic and profane, while Françoise shouted: "Come on, button up your coat, look, and let's get away!" and I remarked for the first time how common her speech was, and that she had, alas, no blue feather in her hat.

public-domain-review

Nov 14, 2013

Adam Green

collection

2024-05-01T21:45:26.899223

phenomena-of-materialisation-1923

Phenomena of Materialisation (1923) Text by Adam Green Oct 31, 2013 This remarkable book by German physician and psychic researcher Baron von Schrenck-Notzing focuses on a series of séances, witnessed between the years 1909 and 1913, involving the French medium Eva Carrière (or Eva C). Born Marthe Béraud, Carrière changed her name in 1909 to begin her career afresh after a series of seances she held in 1905 were exposed as a fraud. Her psychic performances as Eva C gained the attention of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who believed she was genuine, and also Harry Houdini, who was not so convinced. Another researcher who became interested in her case was Albert von Schrenck-Notzing. A series of tests he devised between the years 1909 and 1913 convinced him that Eva C was the real deal and in 1913 he published his Phenomena of Materialisation detailing the sessions and the reasons for his belief. It has been noted that these sessions with Schrenck-Notzing verged on the pornographic. Carrière's assistant (and reported lover) Juliette Bisson would, during the course of the séance sittings with Schrenck-Notzing, introduce her finger into Carrière's vagina to ensure no "ectoplasm" had been put there beforehand. This would be followed by Carrière stripping nude at the end and demanding another full-on gynaecological exam. Whether the audience members were obliging is up for debate, but reports that Carrière would run around the séance room naked indulging in sexual activities with her audience suggests perhaps so. One can imagine that this deliberate eroticisation of the male audience might go some way to explaining the ease with which these "investigators" believed the psychic reality of the seances. A decision of fraud on their part would distance their involvement somewhat from the special and heightened context of the séances and so cast their complicity in, or at the least witnessing of, sexual activities in the sober (and more judgemental) cold light of day. The spiritualist debunker Harry Price wrote that the photographs taken by Schrenk-Notzing, rather than proving the reality of Carrière's mediumship, in fact did just the opposite. In 1920, Carrière was investigated by the Society for Psychical Research in London. An analysis of her ectoplasm revealed it to be made of chewed paper and the ghostly faces to be cut from the French magazine Le Miroir. Back issues of the magazine matched some of Carrière's ectoplasm faces, including Woodrow Wilson, King Ferdinand of Bulgaria, and the French president Raymond Poincaré. This is something Schrenk-Notzing tries to address in his book, but without much success. A 1913 newspaper article explained how Miss Eva prepared the heads before every séance, and endeavoured to make them unrecognizable. A clean-shaven face was decorated with a beard. Grey hairs became black curls, a broad forehead was made into a narrow one. But, in spite of all her endeavours, she could not obliterate certain characteristic lines."

public-domain-review

Oct 31, 2013

Adam Green

collection

2024-05-01T21:45:27.384392

an-account-of-a-chinese-cabinet-1753

An Account of a Chinese Cabinet (1753) Oct 23, 2013 An account by Sir Hans Sloane detailing the contents of a Chinese cabinet (which includes a "Sea Horse Tooth") procured by a Mr Buckley during travels in China. A physician by trade Sloane was also an avid collector of natural curiosities and upon his death, bequeathed the entirety of his collection to the nation and, together with George II's royal library, it was opened to the public as the British Museum in 1759. A note at the end of this account, which appears in the January 1753 accounts of the Royal Society (the same month that Sloane would pass away), praises the collecting of Mr Buckley: It were to be wished other travellers into Foreign parts would make such enquiries (as Mr Buckly [sic] who sent these to the Royal Society has done) into the Instruments and Materials made use of in the places where they come, that are any manner of way for the Benefit or innocent delight of Mankind, that we may content our selves with our own Inventions, where we go beyond them, and imitate theirs wherein they go beyond ours.

public-domain-review

Oct 23, 2013

collection

2024-05-01T21:45:27.823898

blackboard-sketching-1909

Frederick Whitney’s Blackboard Sketching (1909) Text by Hunter Dukes Sep 17, 2013 In his brief introduction to Frederick Whitney’s Blackboard Sketching, the American painter and educator Walter Sargent writes that “to draw easily and well on the blackboard is a power which every teacher of children covets. Such drawing is a language which never fails to hold attention and awaken delighted interest”. Aimed at educators looking to improve their lesson plans, these drawings may capture the attention of young students, but Whitney’s illustrative plates for Blackboard Sketching are also capable of awakening a childhood wonder in their adult viewer. Using simple strokes — “a straight mark with the side of the chalk”; “a quick back-and-forth movement”; “a graded stroke from side to side” — he summons lifelike oyster shells, Shakespearean castles, and cozy Christmas hearths. Out of dusty chalk, dreamlike scenes emerge. And while the natural imagery feels timeless, other details ground this carbonate imagination in a particular romantic vision of the United States at the century’s turn. There are log cabins of homesteaders, square-rigged ships on the high seas, wigwams nested in dark groves, and, in the final and most bizarre image of the book, a cut-out photograph of a child dressed in cotton batting, posed in front of a chalk backdrop of igloos and icebergs. Using this same technique, Whitney claims, “A Japanese Day, An Indian Entertainment, A Soldiers’ Camp Ground, A Lumber Camp, and many others, are easily arranged.” The Director of Art at the State Normal School in Salem, Massachusetts (now Salem State University), Charles Frederick Whitney (1858–1949) provided art instruction to a student body composed of mostly working-class women. He lectured on “The furnishing of the simple home” and “The symbolism of color”, and taught courses on weaving, drawing, and handwork. Whitney is remembered by his 1920 pupils as having the “apparent hobby” of “looking distinguished” and for frequently uttering the phrase: “Bully, girls, very harmonious”. He seems to have appealed to harmony across his career: seven years later, students asked in their yearbook, “What would happen if Mr. Whitney wasn’t dressed harmoniously?”, and recounted visiting their art teacher’s “enchanting home”, where his “rich oriental rugs, the delicate hangings, the deep cushions, and the neutral lamp shades” created “a complimentary harmony”. As an artist, he made water-color sketches of natural landscapes, and went on to publish another book, Indian Designs and Symbols (1925). Upon retirement, Whitney was memorialized through a plaque presented by the Class of 1928, remembering their instructor as a “Teacher . . . Artist . . . Friend”.

public-domain-review

Sep 17, 2013

Hunter Dukes

collection

2024-05-01T21:45:28.316663

the-sketchbooks-of-jacques-louis-david

The Sketchbooks of Jacques-Louis David Oct 22, 2013 Selections from "Album 11", a sketchbook belonging to the French neoclassical painter and revolutionary Jacques-Louis David. The sketches are from his student years in Rome in the 1770s, a time in which he became obsessed with the ancient and Renaissance art to be found in the city. During this period he made well over 1000 "Roman sketches" and relied on them as a visual resource throughout his career. Once returned to Paris, David dismantled his sketchbooks and reorganised the leaves into albums according to type, numbering 12 in total. This 11th album - held by the Getty Research Institute and included in The Getty's Open Content program - is mainly concerned with studies of the bas-reliefs and sculptures from prominent Italian collections, including the ancient Roman paintings unearthed in Pompeii and Herculaneum. David was arguably the most influential European artist of the late 18th century, his thoughtful style of "history painting" marking a change in the moral climate at a crucial time in European history: the end of the Ancien Regime and birth of the French Revolution. David, a close friend of the revolutionary leader Maximilien Robespierre, was an active supporter of the French Revolution (he voted for the execution of Louis XVI in the National Convention) and became effectively a dictator of the arts under the French Republic. After Robespierre's fall from power, David was imprisoned and upon his release he aligned himself with yet another political regime, that of Napoleon I, a support which gave birth to one of the most famous portraits of "The Little Corporal" - Napoleon at the Saint-Bernard Pass - in which the military leader is depicted in heroic posture upon a rearing horse.

public-domain-review

Oct 22, 2013

collection

2024-05-01T21:45:28.868454

a-pamphlet-on-verdi-1901

A Pamphlet on Verdi (1901) Oct 10, 2013 A small pamphlet (in the series "Little journeys to the homes of great musicians") on the life of the Italian composer Guiseppe Verdi, beginning with a fictionalised account of his childhood meeting with his early patron Signior Barezzi and his eldest daughter Margherita, with whom Verdi ended up falling in love. He sort of clung to the iron pickets, did the boy, and pressed his thin face through the fence, and listened. Some one was playing the piano in the big house, and the windows with their little diamond panes were flung open to catch the evening breeze. He listened. His big grey eyes were open wide, the pupils dilated, — he was trying to see the music as well as hear it. The boy's hair matched the yellow of his face, being one shade lighter, sun-bleached from going hatless. His clothes were as yellow as the yellow of his face, and shaded off into the dust that strewed the street. He was like a quail in a stubble field — you might have stepped over him and never seen him at all. He listened, Almost every evening someone played the piano in the big house. He had discovered the fact a week before. And now when the dusk was gathering, he would watch his chance and slide away from the hut where his parents lived, and run fast up the hill, and along the shelving roadway to the tall iron fence that marked the residence of Signior Barezzi. He would creep along under the stone wall and crouching there, would wait and listen for the music. Several evenings he had come and waited, and waited, and waited, — and not a note or a voice did he hear. Once it had rained, and he didn't mind it much, for he expected every moment the music would strike up, you know, — and who cares for cold, or wet, or even hunger, if one can hear good music! The air grew chill and the boy's thread-bare jacket stuck to his bony form like a postage stamp to a letter. Little rivulets of water ran down his hair and streamed off his nose and cheeks. He waited — he was waiting for the music. He might have waited until the water dissolved his insignificant cosmos into just plain yellow mud, and then he would have been simply distributed all along the gutter, down to the stream, and down the stream to the river, and down the river to the ocean; and no one would ever have heard of him again. But Signior Barezzi's coachman came along that night, keeping close to the fence under the trees to avoid the wet; and the coachman fell over the boy. Now, when we fall over anything we always want to kick it, — no matter what it is, be it a cat, dog, stump, stick, stone, or human. The coachman being but clay (undissolved) turned and kicked the boy. Then he seized him by the collar, and accused him of being a thief. The lad acknowledged the indictment, and stammeringly tried to explain that it was only music he was trying to steal ; and that it really made no difference because even if one did fill himself full of the music, there was just as much left for other people, since music was different from most things. The thought was not very well expressed, although the idea was all right, but the coachman failed to grasp it. So he tingled the boy's bare legs with the whip he carried, by way of answer, duly cautioning him never to let it occur again, and released the prisoner on parole. But the boy forgot and came back the next night. He sat on the ground below the wall, intending to keep out of sight ; but when the music began he stood up, and now, with face pressed between the pickets, he listened. The wind sighed softly through the orange trees; the air was heavy with the perfume of flowers ; the low of cattle came from across the valley, and on the evening breeze from an open casement rose the strong, vibrant yet tender strains of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. The lad listened. "Do you like music?" came a voice from behind. The boy awoke with a start, and tried to butt his head through the pickets to escape in that direction. He thought it was the coachman. He turned and saw the kindly face of Signior Barezzi himself. "Do I like music? Me! No, I mean yes, when it is like that!" he exclaimed, beginning his reply with a tremolo and finishing bravura. "That is my daughter playing; come inside with me." The hand of the great man reached out, and the urchin clutched at it as if it were something he had been looking and longing for. They walked through the big gates where a stone lion kept guard on each side. The lions never moved. They walked up the steps and entering the pzirlor, saw a young woman seated at the piano. "Grazia, dear, here is the little boy we saw the other day — you remember ? I thought I would bring him in." The young woman came forward and touched the lad on his tawny head with one of her beautiful hands — the beautiful hands that had just been playing the Sonata. "That's right, little boy, we have seen you outside there before, & if I had known you were there tonight, I would have gone out and brought you in ; but Papa has done the service for me. Now, you must sit down right over there where I can see you, and I will play for you. But won't you tell us your name ?" "Me?" replied the boy, "why, my name is Giuseppe Verdi— I am ten years old, going on 'leven — you see I like your playing because I play myself, a little!"

public-domain-review

Oct 10, 2013

collection

2024-05-01T21:45:29.325340

come-take-a-trip-in-my-airship-1904

Come Take a Trip in my Airship (1904) Sep 25, 2013 Rendition by Welsh-born baritone singer J. W. Myers of a song composed in 1904 by fellow countryman George "Honey Boy" Evans and written by the American Ren Shields. The song would go on to be recorded, with slight variations, by a string of popular musicians including Jonny Cash and more recently Natalie Merchant.

public-domain-review

Sep 25, 2013

collection

2024-05-01T21:45:29.837565

a-little-wander-down-the-catwalk-of-time

A little wander down the catwalk of time... Sep 10, 2013

public-domain-review

Sep 10, 2013

collection

2024-05-01T21:45:30.308597

wear-celluloid-collars-and-cuffs-ca-1870

Wear Celluloid Collars and Cuffs (ca.1870) Nov 7, 2013 A charming set of 19th Century American trade cards, advertising - via the medium of a frog and gnome-like character - collars and cuffs made of a waterproof linen (celluloid). After the Civil War there was a huge boom in advertising throughout the United States. The new widespread network of railroads which covered the land enabled the mass production of industrial and consumer goods on a scale never seen before and with this rise in goods came also a need to rise above the competition via eye-catching adverts. Advertising spread to a huge variety of media, including catalogues, broadsides, newspapers and sets of advertising cards like those featured here, miniature posters, about the size of a postcard, which were handed out as souvenirs at major expositions.

public-domain-review

Nov 7, 2013

collection

2024-05-01T21:45:30.797750

animated-gifs-emile-cohl-s-fantasmagorie-1908

Animated GIFs: Émile Cohl’s Fantasmagorie (1908) Sep 26, 2013 A series of animated GIFs excerpted by Okkult Motion Pictures from the French caricaturist, cartoonist and animator Émile Cohl’s Fantasmagorie. Made in 1908, this hand-drawn animation is considered by many film historians to be the very first animated cartoon. Despite appearances it is not created on a blackboard but rather on paper, the blackboard effect achieved by shooting each of the 700 drawings onto negative film. The title is a reference to the “fantasmograph”, a mid-19th century variant of the magic lantern that projected ghostly images on to surrounding walls. You can see the full film featured in our Films collection here. * Okkult Motion Pictures is the brainchild of Marco Calabrese and Alessandro Scali from Turin, Italy. With the Excerpts project, Okkult Motion Pictures aims to bring to light the most interesting and unusual out-of-copyright moving images occulted in Internet archives, through a series of animated gifs. A digital archivalism project for the diffusion of open knowledge. Okkult Motion Pictures official website / Twitter * All Okkult animated GIFs published here under a CC-BY-SA license.

public-domain-review

Sep 26, 2013

collection

2024-05-01T21:45:31.250378

robert-cornelius-self-portrait-the-first-ever-selfie-1839

Robert Cornelius’ Self-Portrait: The First Ever “Selfie” (1839) Nov 19, 2013 In 2013, the Oxford Dictionaries announced their word of the year to be “selfie”, which they define as “a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website.” Although the rampant proliferation of the technique is quite recent, the "selfie" itself (if defined as being a photograph one takes of oneself) is far from being a strictly modern phenomenon. Indeed, the photographic self-portrait is surprisingly common in the very early days of photography exploration and invention, when it was often more convenient for the experimenting photographer to act as model as well. In fact, the picture considered by many to be the first photographic portrait ever taken was a "selfie". The image in question was taken in 1839 by an amateur chemist and photography enthusiast from Philadelphia named Robert Cornelius. Setting up his camera at the back of the family store in Philadelphia, Cornelius took the image by removing the lens cap and then running into frame where he sat for a minute before covering up the lens again. On the back of the image he wrote "The first light Picture ever taken. 1839."

public-domain-review

Nov 19, 2013

collection

2024-05-01T21:45:31.564499

samuel-johnson-s-dictionary-of-the-english-language-1785

Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language (1785) Oct 15, 2013 Volume 1 (find Volume 2 here) of the 6th edition of Samuel Johnson's epic achievement A Dictionary of the English Language, published a year after his death in 1785. Originally published 30 years previously on 15th April 1755, the mammoth tome took Johnson nearly 9 years to complete, remarkably almost completely single-handedly, and is now considered as one of the most influential dictionaries in the history of the English language. When it came out the book was huge, not just in scope (it contained a 42,773-long word list) but also in size: its pages were 18 inches (46 cm) tall and nearly 20 inches (50 cm) wide. Johnson himself pronounced the book "Vasta mole superbus" ("Proud in its great bulk"). One of Johnson's important innovations was to illustrate the meanings of his words by literary quotation, of which there are around 114,000. The authors most frequently cited by Johnson include Shakespeare, Milton and Dryden but also included sentences taken from the popular press of his day. An entire scan of the first edition of Johnson's book can be found at the wonderful Johnson's Dictionary Online site - and also a nearly 8% (at the time of writing this) complete transcription.

public-domain-review

Oct 15, 2013

collection

2024-05-01T21:45:31.914149

the-coronation-of-king-ladislaus-of-poland-1633

The Coronation of King Ladislaus of Poland (1633) Sep 5, 2013 Illustration from a book celebrating the coronation of King Ladislaus of Poland in February of 1633. A rather rotund looking Ladislaus (presuming the figure is, in fact, the king) hovers in the clouds with the Latin words Ingenium Naturae on a banner above his head, literally translating as "natural talent".

public-domain-review

Sep 5, 2013

collection

2024-05-01T21:45:32.378156