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Practical Hydrotherapy (1909)

Jun 10, 2015

A selection of images used to illustrate Practical Hydrotherapy: A Manual for Students and Practitioners (1909). The book is written by Dr Curran Pope, a professor of physiotherapy as well as a professor of "diseases of the mind and nervous system", electro-therapy, and hydrotherapy, to name but a few areas of his expertise. He was also the head of his own sanatorium in Louisville, Kentucky. As the book's contents list suggests, Pope considered hydrotherapy - treatment in which the temperature or pressure of water is used - as a viable method for curing anything from diabetes and heart disease to paranoia and alcoholism. The treatments are comprised of baths, douches, enemas, steam, and wet sheets, which are applied in various temperatures and orders depending on the ailment. Pope believed the body to heal itself and that water could aid the healing or indeed help to prevent diseases from occurring. He also believed in testing the methods on himself. He writes in the preface:
Much information and a clearer insight than mere description can give, is to note the physiological action of hydrotherapy by "putting yourself in his place." One application of a cold jet douche to the spine gives more realistic information than pages of description. I therefore make the suggestion of "practice on yourself" first. Many experiments herein mentioned have had the author as principal party in interest.


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Pictures of Life and Character from the collection of Mr Punch (1887)

Jun 23, 2015

The English illustrator and caricaturist John Leech (1817 – 1864) is best known for his work for Punch, the humorous and satirical magazine founded in 1841 by Henry Mayhew, who served as editor together with Mark Lemon, and engraver Ebenezer Landells. Punch took its name from the Mr Punch of Punch and Judy, the rather violent comical puppet show. The magazine combined humour with politics, making fun of the monarchy and the leading politicians of the time. Due to financial difficulties, the magazine was later sold to Bradbury and Evans, who moved from printing to publishing and later became the publishers of such great Victorian names as Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray. However, with the loss of Mayhew as editor, the magazine's radical content decreased, and it later came to represent the growing conservative middle class in Britain.
Leech's artistic gifts were noted and encouraged from an early age. After studying medicine at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London, he drifted towards the artistic profession with his illustrations first appearing in print at the age of eighteen. During his time at Punch, he produced around 3000 caricatures as well as other illustrations for the magazine.

source: public-domain-review

type: collection

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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The Games and Pleasures of Childhood (1657)

Jul 14, 2015

A selection of plates from Les Jeux et Plaisirs de l'Enfance (1657) - translating as "The games and pleasures of childhood" - a series of fifty engravings depicting children playing various games. Many of the games depicted are familiar to us today, such as tennis, darts, and "blind man's buff", but many are more unusual. One titled "Le jeu de pet en gueule" (literally translating as "The game of fart in the face") seems to involve just what it says on the tin, in addition to some secondary racing element. Another simply titled "Bataille" (battle) seems to be akin to one massive free-for-all punch-up.
The images were made by the French female engraver Claudine Bouzonnet-Stella (1636-1697) after initial studies by her uncle Jacques Stella (1596-1657), whom she studied under and whose workshop she came to work for along with her two sisters and her brother. After the death of her uncle in 1657, Claudine took charge of the workshop at the age of twenty-one, receiving exclusive rights to publish prints based on her uncle's designs. The same year saw the publication of Les Jeux et Plaisirs de l'Enfance.


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15th-Century Illuminations for Dante’s Divine Comedy

Jun 4, 2015

Dante's epic 14th-century poem the Divine Comedy - with its dazzling descriptions of all manner of hellish and heavenly scenes - has proven fertile ground for many artists over the centuries, including the likes of William Blake, Gustave Doré, and Salvador Dali. One of the most impressive attempts to render the verse into visuals comes to us in the form of the illuminations found in an Italian manuscript produced only 125 years or so after Dante completed his poem in 1320. Dated to between 1444 and 1450, the illuminations vary in style due to the fact that two separate artists worked on them, with the first two sections of Inferno and Purgatorio being drawn by the lesser known Priamo della Quercia (active 1426-1467), while the Paradiso section was illustrated by Giovanni di Paolo di Grazia (ca. 1403-1482) who contributed 61 illuminations in all. The work has belonged to Alfonso V, king of Aragon, Naples, and Sicily (1396 – 1458) and his great grandson Ferdinand, Duke of Calabria (1488 – 1550), who donated the manuscript to the convent of San Miguel in Valencia in 1538. It was later bought in 1901 by Henry Yates Thompson, a collector of illuminated manuscripts, and was donated to the British Museum in 1941. Here below are a few choice selections.


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The Hare of Inaba (1892)

May 21, 2015

This little tale, involving eighty-one princes and a hare, can be found in the oldest surviving chronicle of Japan, the Kojiki, which dates from the early-8th century. Collected and edited by the Japanese nobleman Ō no Yasumaro at the request of Empress Genmei, the Kojiki is a collection of myths that tell the origin of the four main islands of Japan.
This particular story - illustrated here and retold in English - involves a mistreated hare, a bridge of crocodiles, eighty mean brothers, one good brother, and a beautiful princess. In Japanese folklore, the hare is believed to be able to live up to a thousand years, with its fur turning white at the age of 500 years.


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Reenactment of First Operation under Ether (ca. 1850)

Jul 28, 2015

Daguerrotype believed to show a re-enactment of the first operation in which a patient was succesfully anaesthetised with the use of ether. The man posed on the operating table is anonymous but the names given of some of the others standing around are a Mr. Holman and surgeons John Mason Warren, John Collins Warren, George Hayward, Solomon D. Townsend and James Johnson.
The scene reenacts one of the most important moments in medical history. In September of 1846 dentist William T. G. Morton administered ether to one of his patients and removed a tooth without the patient suffering any pain. The surgeon and Professor of Surgery at Harvard University, Henry Jacob Bigelow, read of Morton's use of ether and arranged for a demonstration to be held on October 16 at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. The designated guinea pig was a man in his early twenties, a Mr Edward Gilbert Abbott, who had a tumour on his neck. During the operation, Morton administered the ether, after which Dr John Collins Warren removed the tumour. The operation was a success, although it seems Abbott's tumour changed very little in size. After this, the operating theatre in which the operation was performed came to be known as the "Ether Dome" and the news of ether being used as an anaesthetic spread, the first recorded use of it in Britain being in December of the same year when Robert Liston, a Scottish surgeon known for performing amputations and operations quickly, anaesthetised his patient and amputated the man's leg.


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Is Man a Free Agent? The Law of Suggestion (1902)

May 26, 2015

Turn-of-the-century book on the art of hypnosis and a study into how humans work under its influence. The author, the hypnotist Santanelli (James H. Loryea), writes:
If you will follow through the ensuing pages, unsophisticated as I am, I will try to teach you something about man – a mere machine; his every thought and action forced, possessing no will power, and in no way responsible for his actions. For twelve years I have studied nightly from ten to twenty-five hypnotized subjects and have found that they are ruled by the same general law as the non-hypnotized man. In other words, a hypnotized subject is a slowed-down machine which one knowing how, can watch each and every movement of, and thereby comprehend cause and effect. Through a hypnotized subject we can learn how "normal" man is forced to act. Consequently, we can thoroughly analyze the whys and wherefores of every act performed by a subject while in hypnosis, during which time I believe the cerebrum to be entirely inactive.
Not much is known about Santanelli. An article from The New York Times in 1896 tells of a performance given by him during which ten men were hypnotized and made to do or feel various things, such as believing that they had injured their foot or that the chair they sat on was red-hot. The most controversial performance however began on March 30th 1896 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, when Santanelli put his young assistant James Mahoney into some sort of coma or hypnotized sleep for a week, during which the public became worried for his health and tried to get Santanelli to wake the young man. When Mahoney was awoken after a week, he had reportedly lost 9 1/4 pounds (a little over 4 kg) but was otherwise unchanged, regaining his original weight within 24 hours.


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Shells and other Marine Life from Albertus Seba’s Cabinet of Natural Curiosities (1734)

Jul 22, 2015

The Dutch pharmacist and collector Albertus Seba (1665-1736) was an ardent collector of plants, insects, and animals, amassing a collection which in 1716 was bought by Peter the Great. Together with the collection of one of Seba's countrymen, the anatomist Frederik Ruysch, the collections formed the base for the Kunstkammer in St Petersburg, the first museum in Russia. In 1734, Seba published his Thesaurus, titled Locupletissimi rerum naturalium thesauri accurata descriptio, translated as "Accurate description of the very rich thesaurus of the principal and rarest natural objects", and consisted of four volumes of which two were published after Seba's death. The coloured engravings found here are from the volume focused on the life of the sea, including various shells, fish, and plants. Although earlier collectors had not been too particular regarding the arrangement of their items, the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries saw a change in the way the collections were presented. Seba, along with other collectors such as fellow Dutchman Levinus Vincent, began to order their collections in elaborate and highly decorative constructions, as is demonstrated in these plates.


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The Athenian Oracle (1820)

Jul 2, 2015

The Athenian Oracle - a sort of 17th-century version of Quora - had its roots in The Athenian Mercury, a magazine published twice a week in London between 1690 and 1697. Its Editor-in-Chief John Dunton had come upon the idea of having an advice column in the magazine, giving the readers a chance to send in their questions which would then be answered by a group of experts. This group, called The Athenian Society, consisted of a Dr Norris, the mathematician Richard Sault, the clergyman and author Samuel Wesley, as well as Dunton himself. The questions received by the society covered everything from natural sciences and philosophy to literature and religion, and in 1703, they were collected and published as The Athenian Oracle. Questions range from why horses neigh or how dew is produced, to asking if there is a cure for stammering, as well as philosophical questions on what happiness is - or what death is. Some of the questions were written by women, resulting in a spin-off called The Ladies' Mercury which was published for four weeks in 1693 and was the first periodical specifically aimed for women.


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Professor Welton’s Boxing Cats (1894)

Jun 25, 2015

This film, featuring two cats wearing boxing gloves and packing a punch, was filmed in Thomas Edison's studio in 1894. The performance was part of Professor Henry Welton's "cat circus", which toured the United States both before and after appearing in Edison's film. Performances included cats riding small bicycles and doing somersaults, with the boxing match being the highlight of the show. As for why the cats were filmed (apart from being an early example of people enjoying footage of cats), it might have possibly been a publicity stunt to advertise the show. It could also quite possibly be the first ever "cat video" (though, of course, before the days of video).


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The Butter Sculptures of Caroline S. Brooks

May 12, 2015

Butter as a sculpting medium can be traced back to "banquet art", a tradition most associated with the Renaissance and Baroque periods. In the same vein as sugar art, it was a way of bringing entertainment to the table and usually signified a special occasion or part of the meal. The earliest reference to the practice dates from 1536 and details the creations of Pope Pius V's cook Bartolomeo Scappi, among which could be found an elephant and a tableau of Hercules engaged in combat with a lion. Although these sculptures were only placed on the table long enough to impress the guests, the American sculptor Caroline Shawk Brooks (1840 – 1913) managed to exhibit her butter sculptures in galleries and exhibitions by using ice to keep them from melting.
Brooks had always had an interest in art and, after marrying a farmer, she made her first butter sculpture in 1867 as a way to promote the product. Not using moulds, she was admired for utilising traditional tools including a butter paddle, broom straw, and a "camel's-hair pencil". In 1873, she made a sculpture of the blind princess Iolanthe from Danish poet and playwright Henrik Hertz's verse drama King René's Daughter. Dreaming Iolanthe, as it was known, was exhibited at a Cincinnati gallery in 1874 for two weeks and attracted more than two thousand people keen to catch a glimpse of the sleeping princess rendered in dairy product. Continuing on the same subject, Brooks made a bas-relief bust of Iolanthe for the Centennial Exhibition held in Philadelphia in 1876 and a full-sized sculpture which was shipped to France and exhibited at the third Paris World's Fair in 1878. She went on to study art in Paris and Florence, and although she later tended to forgo dairy for the more traditional medium of marble, she always continued to use butter as a material. Other notable sculptors to use butter as a medium include the Norwegian-American sculptor John Karl Daniels, whose creations were featured in the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis, in 1904, and the Minnesota State Fair, 1910. Read more about the history of butter sculpting here.


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Toasts for All Occasions (1903)

May 5, 2015

A book on toasts for all occasions published in 1903, celebrating such subjects as the art of drinking, women, America, home, friendship... and the household cook. Below is a small selection of some of the entertaining toasts found in the book.
--

The Frenchman loves his native wine;
The German loves his beer;
The Englishman loves his 'alf and 'alf,
Because it brings good cheer.
The Irishman loves his "whiskey straight";,
Because it gives him dizziness.
The American has no choice at all,
So he drinks the whole —— business.

--

Hail to the graduating girl;
She's sweeter, far, than some;
For while she speaks she talks no slang
And chews no chewing gum.

--

We may live without poetry, music, and art;
We may live without conscience and live without heart;
We may live without friends and live without books;
But civilized man cannot live without cooks.
We may live without books — what is knowledge but grieving?
We may live without hope — what is hope but deceiving?
We may live without love — what is passion but pining?
But where is the man that can live without dining?


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Barbara Allen performed by Frank Luther (1928)

Jul 16, 2015

American country singer Frank Luther, born Francis Luther Crow (1899 - 1980), performing the folk song Barbara Allen. The earliest mention of the song can be found in a diary entry of Samuel Pepys from January 1666 while the first printed version of the song in the United States is from 1836. Originally from England and Scotland, the song is a traditional ballad with various versions to the lyrics but with the central theme of the song remaining the same. A young man lies dying when he tells his servant to bring a woman called Barbara Allen to see him. The lovers have had a quarrel and the young man dies with Barbara taking pity on him only when it is too late. She dies shortly afterwards and the lovers are reunited as the rosebush and briar that grow on their graves are intertwined.


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Transference of Thoughts (1885)

Jul 8, 2015

An illustration from Science - An Illustrated Journal, a nineteenth-century weekly published in New York by The Science Company. The picture is an experiment carried out according to the ideas of the French physiologist Charles Richet (1850–1935) who believed in thought transmission. Richet did research on such subjects as digestion and breathing, as well as homeothermic animals, whilst later becoming interested in hypnosis and spiritualism. He believed there could be physical explanations to paranormal phenomena. The image featured here shows the drawings made during the experiment, one person making a drawing, after which another person tries to copy it without seeing the originally drawn picture. As you can see there was limited success.


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Thackerayana (1875)

Jul 9, 2015

A remarkable compendium of nearly six hundred doodles made by the nineteenth-century author William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863), author of Vanity Fair. After he died suddenly from a stroke in 1863, the furniture, paintings, and other articles belonging to Thackeray were put up for public auction. Among these items were books in which he had doodled pictures in the margins and flyleaves - some in pencil and some in pen - depicting a huge range of subjects, from a violin-playing skeleton on a hangman's noose to naughty knights and injured angels. These illustrations were collected and published twelve years later under the title of Thackerayana (1875), in a work which combined the pictures with anecdotes from his life and excerpts from works belonging to his library.
A contemporary and a friend of Charles Dickens, Thackeray worked as a journalist and wrote for such magazines as Fraser's Magazine, The Morning Chronicle, and Punch, with his first full-length work of fiction Catherine: A Story appearing in Fraser's Magazine between 1839 - 1840. Nowadays, he is not as widely read as Dickens, with Vanity Fair (1848) remaining as his most well-known work of fiction.


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Colorised Stereographs of The Russo-Japanese War (1905)

Jun 18, 2015

A selection of colorised stereographs depicting Japanese soldiers and camp life during the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905. A result of a rivalry between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan over the control of areas in Manchuria and Korea, the war would introduce a number of features that came to define 20th-century politics and warfare. It was on its battlefields that many technological innovations of the Industrial Revolution first became used in warfare on a mass scale - including modern armaments, such as rapid firing artillery and machine guns - paving the way for the devastation of the WW1 in the following decade. In the end, the Japanese victory took the West by surprise and Russia was forced to forfeit its expansion policy in the Far East, with Japan proving it was a force to be reckoned with. As for Russia, the many defeats suffered by the country led to discontent over the Romanov autocracy, and after World War I contributed to the February Revolution of 1917.


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In the Gloaming - American Quartet (1910)

May 14, 2015

A rendition by American Quartet (with Will Oakland) of "In the Gloaming", a song first composed in 1877 by Annie Fortescue Harrison (1850/1–1944) using lyrics taken from a poem by Meta Orred (1845/6-1893).

In the gloaming, oh my darling!
When the lights are dim and low,
And the quiet shadows falling
Softly come and softly go,
When the winds are sobbing faintly
With a     gentle, unknown    woe,
Will you think of me and love me
As you     did once long ago?

In the gloaming, oh my darling!
Think not bitterly of me!
Though I passed away in silence,
Left you lonely, set you free,
For my heart was crushed with longing;
What had been could never be.
It was best to leave you thus, dear,
Best for you and best for me.


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The Newgate Calendar (1795)

May 13, 2015

Comprised of the tales of both famous and lesser-known criminals from the 18th and 19th centuries and named after Newgate Prison in London, the Newgate Calendar became one of the most popular books of its day, said to be as much a part of the British household as the Bible. Born out of broadsides - so called single-sided sheets with ballads, biographies or last-minute confessions sold at public executions and fairs - the Newgate Calendar tells the fates of murderers, fraudsters, robbers, and traitors and how they fell from virtue to vice. While collections of these stories appear during the mid-18th century, the first one titled Newgate Calendar was published in 1773. There are many versions of the Newgate Calendar existing under slightly different names, and in 1824, a new edition was published by two lawyers, Andrew Knapp and William Baldwin, who later published another version called The New Newgate Calendar in 1826. The book was considered educational, teaching children what would become of those who broke the law, but the public's' fascination with the rogues of the day led to so called Newgate Novels, published between the late 1820s to the 1840s with melodramatic or glorified tales of the criminals featured in them.


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Bird Gods (1898)

Jul 21, 2015

A book on various birds from mythology by the American linguist, poet, and critic Charles DeKay (1848-1935). An art and literary critic who worked for 18 years for the New York Times, DeKay was also an  ardent fan of fencing, founding the Fencer's Club in New York as well as a host of other clubs, including the Author’s club, the National Sculpture Society, and the National Arts Club. Speaking fluent German, French, and Italian, as well as studying Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit, DeKay's linguistic background is apparent in the book as he traces the various cultures and mythologies that the different birds appear in. He presents the idea that, rather than the more distant celestial objects, it is the animals that have surrounded us which have been the root of religious ideas. Each chapter in the book presents a different bird, from the owl and peacock to the woodpecker and the dove, as well as the gods these birds represented. In his preface, DeKay writes of how humans have shared their belief in nature and that this still exists in us no matter of religion, language, or ethnicity, urging his readers to respect nature and not destroy it without reason. He writes:
[...] recollection of what our ancestors thought of birds and beasts, of how at one time they prized and idealized them, may induce in us, their descendants, some shame at the extermination to which we are consigning these lovable but helpless creatures, for temporary gains or sheer brutal love of slaughter. The sordid men who swept from North America the buffalo, the gentlemen who brag of moose and elephants slain, the ladies who demand birds for their hats and will not be denied, the boys who torture poor feathered singers and destroy their nests, are more ruthless than the primeval barbarians. [...] The marvellous tale of the share birds have had in the making of myth, religion, poetry and legend may do somewhat to soften these flinty hearts and induce men to establish and carry out laws to protect especially the birds.


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16th-Century Ornament Prints

May 19, 2015

A collection of highly elaborate ornament prints, mostly in the grotesque style, from the collection of the Rijksmuseum. On the one hand, prints such as these had a functional value, serving as inspiration for craftsmen, such as goldsmiths or carpenters, whose adorning of objects and buildings with ornate designs was in much demand at the time. On the other hand, they are stunning pieces of artwork in their own right, twisting as they do traditional motifs from Roman art and architecture into truly surreal scenes, teeming with curious detail, which almost seem to exist apart from space and time.
The majority of the designs featured here were created by Flemish architect and designer Cornelis Floris II, also known as Cornelis Floris De Vriendt, (1514 – 1575), whose style was hugely influence throughout Northern Europe. A design by one of Cornelis's brothers, Jacob Floris, who was a stained glass painter, is also featured, as well as a couple by Cornelius Bos. Most of the engravings were carried out by the esteemed Van Doetecum brothers, Johannes and Lucas. Hieronymus Cock (1518 – 1570), who is listed as the publisher of almost all of the prints listed here, collaborated with Cornelis Floris on two major works featuring designs for monuments and ornaments. The first one titled Veelderley veranderinghe van grotissen, or Many varieties of grotesques, was published in 1556, followed by Veelderley niewe inuentien van antycksche sepultueren or The many new designs of antique sculptures in 1557. Cock is considered to be the most important print publisher of the late Renaissance in Northern Europe, proving instrumental in turning printmaking from an activity of individual artists and craftsmen into an industry based on the division of labour.


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Sniffles and Sneezes (1955)

Jun 9, 2015

A 1950s "Health and Safety for You" educational film shows how the common cold is spread not just by sneezing and coughing, but through human contact. The germs are illustrated by a black smudge, and after one careless sufferer of the cold touches a door knob at school, the germs spread though books and pencils, leaving most of the students at risk. The advice given is to stay in bed (and use tissues instead of handkerchiefs, which are disposed of in a rather ingenious little trash bag pinned to the side of the bed). While teaching about how not to spread germs, the film also manages to dish out some lessons in good manners and leading a healthy lifestyle, recommending exercise and a balanced diet while remembering to wash your hands, not put pencils in your mouth, and not use other people's straws when drinking.


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The Travels of Ludovico di Varthema (1863)

Jun 11, 2015

The Italian traveler Ludovico di Varthema (ca 1470 – 1517) began his wonderings at the end of 1502 - first visiting Egypt, continuing from there to Syria, before arriving in Mecca between April and June in 1503. He remained in Mecca where he remained for some weeks before continuing to Yemen, India, and Ceylon, finally returning to Europe in 1508. Adopting the Arabic name of Yûnas (Jonah) and disguising himself as a Muslim, he was able to travel to places he would not have been allowed to as a European, although he was later exposed as a fraud in the kingdom of Arabia Felix (modern day Yemen), from where he managed to get away by using his wits - and bribery. All that is known of di Varthema comes from the book detailing his remarkable travels, which were originally published in 1510 and first translated into English in 1556-77 in Richard Eden’s History of Travayle. The version found here was published by The Hackluyt Society, which was founded in 1846 and had as its purpose to further the knowledge of travel and exploration through the publishing and editing of texts rather than actual expeditions.


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Compendium Of Demonology and Magic (ca. 1775)

Jun 30, 2015

A selection of pages from an eighteenth-century demonology book comprised of more than thirty exquisite watercolours showing various demon figures, as well as magic and cabbalistic signs. The full Latin title of Compendium rarissimum totius Artis Magicae sistematisatae per celeberrimos Artis hujus Magistros, roughly translates to "A rare summary of the entire Magical Art by the most famous Masters of this Art". With a title page adorned with skeletons and the warning of Noli me tangere (Do not touch me), one quickly gets a sense of the dark oddities lurking inside its pages. The bulk of the illustrations depict a varied bestiary of grotesque demonic creatures up to all sorts of appropriately demonic activities, such as chewing down on severed legs, spitting fire and snakes from genitalia, and parading around decapitated heads on sticks. In additon there seem also to be pictures relating to necromancy, the act of communicating with the dead in order to gain information about, and possibly control, the future. Written in German and Latin the book has been dated to around 1775, although it seems the unknown author tried to pass it off as an older relic, mentioning the year 1057 in the title page.


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Tell Me Pretty Maiden (1902)

Jun 16, 2015

This number, performed here by Harry Macdonough and Grace Spencer, is from the 1899 musical comedy show Florodora. The composer of the show Leslie Stuart (1863 – 1928) had begun his career as a church organist in Manchester before moving on to write songs for musical shows in 1895, with Florodora becoming his first hit. The original London production had 455 performances and the New York production ran for 552 performances, with Tell Me Pretty Maiden becoming the most successful show tune of its time. The song is originally a sextet, sung by six men and six women, and the plot of the musical centres around a perfume business on the island of Florodora and the schemes and romantic entanglements that evolve there.


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Highlights from Folger Shakespeare Library’s Release of almost 80,000 Images

Aug 13, 2014

Folger Shakespeare Library announced yesterday (12th August 2014), that they have released the contents of their Digital Image Collection under a Creative Commons Share-Alike (CC-BY-SA) license - basically meaning that the images are free to re-use for any purpose as long as you credit the Folger Shakespeare Library as the source and share under a similar license. This is a huge injection of some wonderful material into the open digital commons. Of course, there is plenty of brilliant Bard related content, but also many other gems from the history of theatre. Below you can find our highlights.


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The London Guide and Stranger’s Safeguard against the Cheats, Swindlers, and Pickpockets (1819)

Aug 12, 2014

A comprehensive guide to help the unwitting visitor avoid falling victim to the various and nefarious crimes abound in early 19th-century London. Written by "a gentleman who has made the police of the metropolis an object of enquiry twenty-two years", the book is split into six main chapters: "Out Door Delinquencies", "Inn Door Tricks", "Miscellaneous Offences", "House-Breakers", "Minor Cheats", and "Of Conspirators and Informers", containing within them a multitude of sub-chapters including the rather wonderfully titled offences of "Smashing", "Greeks and Legs", "Private Stills", "Bon Ton", "Box Lobby", and "Pretenders to Literature". The book also features a handy glossary of key vocabulary (two pages of which are featured below). From the Introduction:
When a stranger first arrives in this overgrown city and finds upon alighting at the inn, that he has still some miles perhaps to go before he can see his friends he is naturally anxious for advice how to reach them in safety, with his luggage. But if this be the ease with those who have got friends, what is the dread of such as have a home to seek, business to look after, or place of service to obtain, without a friend to guide their steps, or a candid person to warn them of their danger; to tell them of the precipices, pit falls, and moral turpitude, of a large proportion of the population of this great metropolis?
To supply the place of a living friend, and in some cases to perform the necessary part of one, by directing the stranger in the choice of companions, and what characters he should avoid, I have compiled these sheets; in which will be found "all I know about the matter," and all I could "learn out" by "fine-drawing" of others.


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Flag Semaphore GIF

Jun 20, 2014

Emily Beliveau is a museum professional with a bent towards history-based digital projects. She is currently working as the Digital Archives Assistant at the Huron County Museum in Goderich, Ontario, Canada. Her current project is digitizing a set of public domain (in Canada) images from WWII air training schools in her County (details).


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Palacio’s Plan for Colossal Monument to Columbus (1890)

Jul 2, 2014

Appearing in the October 1890 issue of Scientific American magazine, the engraving above is an artist's rendering of the truly gigantic monument planned by the Spanish architect Alberto Palacio in honour of Christopher Columbus. The structure was designed for the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, an event to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus' arrival in the New World in 1492. The globe of Palacio's design was envisaged to be nearly 1000ft in diameter and to house a spiralling stairway circumambulating its surface - internal until the equator and then external for the northern hemisphere portion, reaching finally the north-pole where sits an enormous copy of one of Columbus' caravel ships (whose hull would house a meteorological observatory). At night the shapes of the continents would be illuminated by a huge number of lights casting beams from below. In the base would be a statue-littered institutional complex dedicated to the natural sciences and geographical exploration, as well as a network of promenades, cafes and restaurants for the public. Not unsurprisingly Palacio's ambitious vision was never realised as physical reality, but if it had it would have cost an estimated $6 million plus - probably something close to $7 billion in today's money.
Below is a transcript of the Scientific American article - "M. Palacio's Design for a Colossal Monument in Memory of Christopher Columbus" - for which the engraving was made.

M. Palacio's Design for a Colossal Monument in Memory of Christopher Columbus
The construction of the Eiffel tower has awakened the pride of the nations. It is said that North America proposes to construct an iron tower which shall be higher than the one in Paris. England also desires to have a monumental tower.
When North America proposed a competition for the construction of a tower to be erected at the Universal Exposition of 1892, a Spanish architect, a native of Bilboa, Mr. M. Alberto de Palacio, drew an original de-sign, of which we publish an engraving.
Mr. De Palacio has conceived a most perfect form, the sphere, which could not have been used prior to the knowledge of iron as a building material, because only by the modern methods of uniting the various parts, of which this material is susceptible, could a sphere be produced with a diameter of nearly 1,000 feet, that is, equal to the height of the Eiffel tower. This idea symbolizes the geographical completion of the earth which was realized by Christopher Columbus' discovery of the New World.
The following is a description of the magnificent design : The colossal sphere is mounted on a base which is 262 feet high, and is crowned at its North Pole by the caravel which carried Columbus to the New World. The monument is brilliant with the colors of the continents, oceans and islands of the terrestrial sphere.
The sphere will be encircled at the equator by a platform 3 280 feet, or more than half a mile, long. An exterior spiral running around the northern hemisphere will form a track nearly two miles long, leading from the equator to the North Pole. At night the sphere will be illuminated by the lines of light which will form the outlines of the continents and islands, thus casting over the city torrents of refulgent brilliancy. The great pyramids of Egypt, the Sphinx, and the Colossus could lie in the hollow interior like jewels in their case. So much for the exterior aspect.
An interior track runs around the southern hemisphere from the South Pole to the Equator, where it joins the exterior spiral. The total length of the spiral is nearly four miles, over which the sightseer can travel on a tramway.
In the base and under the majestic central rotunda will be placed a gigantic statue of the great discoverer surrounded by the navigators and missionaries who rendered his discovery fruitful. In the semicircle around this Olympus of heroes, inclosing the amphitheater, will be allegorical statues representing all the Spanish nations.
In the remaining spaces of the compartments in the base a large Columbus library will be distributed ; auditorium for the cultivation of the natural sciences, museums of zoology, mineralogy, and botany of America, rooms for the Spanish Geographical Society, a great naval museum in the interior central compartment, a meteorological observatory in the hull of the caravel. All this is independent of the promenades, cafes, and restaurants for the public.
In the interior the celestial sphere can be exactly reproduced. It can also be used for magnificent panoramas, because the spherical form is the best for obtaining illusions of perspective. There will be a place for public entertainments.
This astonishing monument can serve as a perennial remembrance of the first Spanish-American and Colonial Exposition.
Mr. Palacio secures the stability of this immense mass by means of a simple method similar to that used for equestrian statues, so that the sphere will be able to resist winds of greater force than a cyclone.
From a business point of view Mr. Palacio makes the following calculation :

One hundred thousand spectators paying an entrance fee of $1, will bring $100,000. This will replace the capital in 62 days, without counting the profits of the cafes, entertainments, etc. The estimated total cost is $6,000,000.

INDISPENSABLE DATA FOR THE ESTIMATE.

Diameter of the sphere.........................................984 ft.
Elevation of the sphere above the ground.......................262 "
Total height of the monument.................................1,312 "
Surface of the sphere......................................337,989 sq. yd.
Volume..................................................18,492,341
Length of the equatorial platform............................3,280 ft.
Length of the ascending spiral..............................19,684 "
Total pressure of the wind of a
hurricane against the monument.......................42,390,00 lbs.

ESTIMATE.

Cost of the sphere and its base.........................$5,059,200
Cost of the machinery, elevators and other accessories..$1,240,000

The architect, Mr. Palacio, is the designer of the movable bridge at Bilboa, used in connection with the submarine railway of Orton on the coast of Spain.—La Ilustracion Espanola y American


text:
A Meditation upon a Broomstick (1711)

Aug 26, 2014

A classic piece of parody from the great Anglo-Irish satirist and author of Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift. The particular butt of Swift's sharp pen in this instance was Robert Boyle and his Occasional Reflections upon Several Subjects (1665), in which various everyday subjects (mirrors, fruit-trees, fish) were likened to religious themes - man's relationship to God, man's relationship to his soul, etc. Swift came across the book during his stay in the household of William Temple, for whom he was employed as a secretary. The book was supposedly very popular in the Temple household and Swift would often read aloud from it to an audience of ladies. However, becoming bored with the predictability of Boyle's points, Swift penned his own Meditation ("upon a broomstick") and inserted it into the Temple's copy. Legend has it that, when it came round to Swift's next recital from the book, instead of reading Boyle's words he read his own musings upon the broomstick, his audience not catching on until the rather absurd frantic finale in which Boyle's kindly tone is replaced with a misanthropistic note of despair and nihilism. Originally penned in 1701, the piece went for many years unpublished until the controversial bookseller and publisher Edmund Curll (the scorn of many of London's literati at the time) published it in 1710 from a manuscript stolen from Swift. This in turn forced Swift to publish a corrected and authorised version (that he apparently had to write from memory). The copy featured above is from an anthology of Swift's works from 1801. You can see the three subtly varying versions <a href="http://jonathanswiftarchive.org.uk/search/work.html#q=work-title:*&fq=work-title:"Meditation upon a Broomstick"&p=1" target="_blank">here at the Jonathan Swift Archive. Below, the earliest published authorised version from 1711.
THIS single Stick, which you now behold Ingloriously lying in that neglected Corner, I once knew in a Flourishing State in a Forest, it was full of Sap, full of Leaves, and full of Boughs; but now, in vain does the busie Art of Man pretend to Vye with Nature, by tying that withered Bundle of Twigs to its sapless Trunk; It's now at best but the Reverse of what it was, a Tree turned upside down, the Branches on the Earth, and the Root in the Air; 'tis now handled by every Dirty Wench, condemned to doe her Drudgery, and by a Capricious kind of Fate, destined to make other Things Clean, and be Nasty it self: At Length, worn to the Stumps in the Service of the Maids, 'tis either thrown out of Doors, or condemned to its last use of kindling a Fire. When I beheld this, I sigh'd and said within my self, Surely Mortal Man is a Broom Stick; Nature sent him into the World Strong and Lusty, in a Thriving Condition, wearing his own Hair on his Head, the proper Branches of this Reasoning Vegetable, till the Axe of Intemperance has lopt off his Green Boughs, and left him a withered Trunk: He then flies to Art, and puts on a Perewig, valuing himself upon an Unnatural Bundle of Hairs all covered with Powder, that never grew on his Head; but now should this our Broom-Stick pretend to enter the Scene, proud of those Birchen Spoils it never bore, and all covered with Dust, though the Sweepings of the Finest Lady's Chamber, we should be apt to Ridicule and Despise its Vanity; Partial Judges that we are of Our own Excellencies, and other Men's Defaults!
BUT a Broom-Stick, perhaps you will say, is an Emblem of a Tree standing on its Head; and pray what is Man, but a Topsy-turvey Creature, his Animal Faculties perpetually mounted on his Rational; His Head where his Heels should be, groveling on the Earth, and yet with all his Faults, he sets up to be an universal Reformer and Corrector of Abuses, a Remover of Grievances, rakes into every Sluts Corner of Nature, bringing hidden Corruptions to the Light, and raises a mighty Dust where there was none before, sharing deeply all the while, in the very same Pollutions he pretends to sweep away: His last Days are spent in Slavery to Women, and generally the least deserving; till worn to the Stumps, like his Brother Bezom, he is either kickt out of Doors, or made use of to kindle Flames, for others to warm themselves by.


text:
Artistic Creation (1901)

Aug 27, 2014

A wonderful short film directed by illusionist-turned-filmmaker Walter R. Booth and produced by Robert W. Paul - one of the earliest examples of trickery in the editing room enabling an artist's creation to come to life on screen, a popular motif in early film. The film features a "lightning sketch" artist drawing a picture of a woman which comes to life piece by piece - first the head, then torso, arms, and finally legs. As the artist gets to work on his next creation, what turns out to be a baby, the woman scarpers leaving the man alone holding the baby and finally offering it to the camera, and therefore us the audience. Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, considers the story "a metaphorical cautionary tale about the responsibilities that should be borne by both creative artists and indeed the male sex in general."


text:
Dame Talkative’s Old Sayings (ca.1824)

Jul 17, 2014

A book of wonderfully illustrated rhymes which, although they appear to be for children, often veer into the world of more adult themes. As well as a few thefts, at one point a boy threatens to beat a snail "as black as a coal", a lady-bird's children are said to be possibly dying in a house-fire, and Margery Daw is called a "nasty slut". The book seems to have been first published in 1818, with this being a later edition (a pencilled note on the inside pages indicating a date of 1824).


text:
Adriaen Coenen’s Fish Book (1580)
Text by Adam Green
Jul 29, 2014

Selected double-page spreads from Adriaen Coenen's Visboek (Fish Book), an epic 800+ page tome on all things fish and fish-related. Coenen began work on this unique book in 1577, at the age of 63, and in three years gathered an unprecedented amount of information on the sea and its coasts, coastal waters, fishing grounds and marine animals. The information was largely gathered in the course of Coenen's daily work in the Dutch sea-side village of Scheveningen as a fisherman and fish auctioneer and, later on, as wreck master of Holland (allowing him access to every strange creature that washed ashore). Coenen was also a well respected authority in academic circles and used this reputation to receive learned works on the sea from The Hague and Leiden, copied extracts from which find their way into his Fish Book. Indeed, much of the Fish Book borrows and quotes from other texts, including Olaus Magnus' Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus. Strange anecdotes and legends, often recounted in pamphlets, prove a fertile source too - one of the most notable being the case of the "tunnyfish" (f49v) caught in 1561 in the Mediterranean Sea near Ceuta that had tattoo or drawing-like marks on its skin that looked like images of ships. Large swathes of the book are dedicated to reports of strange mythical sightings of creatures such as the "zeebisschop", a creature described as possessing a hat, a wand, slippers, a chasuble, and gloves; or a 17 foot long sea monster (f52v) which appeared on the Brazilian coast in 1564 standing on its hind flippers. As well as the eclectic and detailed text, Coenen's book is, of course, notable for its exquisite manner of presentation. Every page becomes a work of art in its own right, decorated with painted borders and delightful watercolours. Two years after its completion, Coenen produced another book this time dedicated solely to whales, known as the Whale Book (now housed in Antwerp).
The digital copies of the Visboek presented here have been spliced together to create the double spread and are all sourced from The National Library of the Netherlands which has digitised the whole of the Visboek and includes a wonderful (flash-based) digital presentation with extensive notes and commentary on individual pages, if you are interested to learn more.

author: Adam Green


text:
The Art of Swimming (1587)
Text by Hunter Dukes
Aug 28, 2014

During a 1934 lecture to the Sociéte de Psychologie in Paris, Marcel Mauss, “the father of French ethnology”, admitted frustration. What interested him most about culture was often filed away under “miscellaneous”, for his subject matter did not readily reveal its significance: “I was well aware . . . that the Polynesians do not swim as we do, that my generation did not swim as the present generation does. But what social phenomena did these represent?” Everard Digby's 1587 De Arte Natandi (The Art of Swimming), considered the first English treatise on the practice, makes a perfect case study for Mauss’ question, revealing how seemingly innate human practices can be cultural techniques, which ebb and flow over time, like the beautiful freshwater bodies within which its woodcut figures wade.
Divided into two parts, the first is largely theoretical, written in a baroque, allusion-heavy Latin that, in John M. McManamon’s words, has “bedeviled readers” ever since. (Digby’s work would be translated into English by Christopher Middleton eight years later.) The second part is concerned with practical demonstration borne out in a series of forty-two beautiful woodcuts, all composed from five landscape blocks into which swimmers in various positions have been placed. The work was hugely influential. In Ocean (2020), Steve Mentz calls Digby’s work the “central historical text marking the upsurge of interest in swimming in early modern England”. Its fame came not just from providing a practical guide to staying afloat and different strokes, but also from its attention to issues of safety.
The techniques range from the common backstroke and doggy paddle — “To swimme on the back”; “To swim like a dog” — to fanciful practices like aquatic toe-nail clipping and gestures now associated with synchronized swimming: “To pare his toes in the water”; “to stroake his legge as if he were pulling on a boote”. Some instructions are comically terse. How does one swim like a dolphin? You simply breathe: “This is nothing els, but in diuing to lift his head aboue the water, & when he hath breathed, presently diue down againe, as afore.” Much more detailed are the descriptions of best practices for safe swimming. As the Wellcome Library Blog discusses: “The work is alive to the dangers of swimming outdoors: Digby makes careful note of the safest methods of entering rivers, warning against jumping in feet first (particularly if the water has a muddy bottom to which your feet would stick) and advocating a slow and patient entry.”
Born in 1550, Digby was an academic theologian at Cambridge University, where he may have taught Thomas Nashe how to swim. As Mentz records, “the images in his book resemble local aquatic hunts along the River Cam”. In 1587, the same year as his swimming treatise was published, Digby was expelled from St John's partly due to his habit of blowing a horn and shouting around the College grounds.
As a historical document, De Arte Natandi’s avoidance of the crawl-like strokes provides an early example of the longstanding European resistance to this technique and its variations — that is, swimming with one’s head submerged in water. In 2022’s Shifting Currents: A World History of Swimming, Karen Eva Carr tracks how colonial Europeans associated the overhand crawl with “uncivilized” indigenous American and African practices well into the nineteenth century. As late as 1906, American coaches were claiming that, while the crawl was “the fastest of all known swimming strokes”, it was “almost useless, as it is very exhausting”. And yet, unlike later philosophers of sport who would try to defend human swimming as a civilized art in contrast to the wild movements of fish and waterfowl, Digby knew the practice to be perfectly natural:
The Fishes in the Sea, whose continuall life is spent in the water, in them dooth no man denie swimming to be the onely gift which Nature hath bestowed vpon them, and shall wee thinke it then artificiall in a man, which in it dooth by many degrees excell them, as dyuing downe to the bottoms of the deepest waters, and fetching from thence whatsoeuer is there sunck downe, transporting things to and fro at his pleasure, sitting, tumbling, leaping, walking, and at his ease perfourmeth many fine feates in the water, which far exceeds the naturall gifts bestowed on Fishes? nay so fit is the constitution of mans body . . .
Below you can browse selections of the woodcuts, courtesy of the Wellcome Collection.

author: Hunter Dukes


text:
Jack and the Beanstalk (1902)

Aug 7, 2014

A short adaptation in nine scenes from the Edison Manufacturing Company of the popular fairytale "Jack and the Beanstalk", directed by George S. Fleming and Edwin S. Porter and starring Thomas White as Jack. From Edison films catalog:
A grand spectacular performance in nine scenes and one tableau, illustrating the most popular fairy story ever written.... From this very simple and popular fairy tale we have produced a most pleasing, interesting and mirth producing play in motion pictures, introducing therein many surprising new tricks and dissolving effects. The subject was carefully studied, and every scene posed with a view to following as closely as possible the accepted version of JACK AND THE BEANSTALK. We have, for the purpose of producing comedy (which in reality is the life of any animated picture play), in some instances departed slightly from the story, in that we have burlesqued a few of the features; as, for instance, where the butcher trades the hatful of beans with Jack for his mother's cow, we have introduced a burlesque animal made up of two men covered over with the head, horns and hide of a cow. This animal goes through many ludicrous antics, such as kicking, jig dancing, sitting down with legs crossed, etc., and finally, after strenuous efforts on the part of the butcher, suffers herself to be led away.


text:
John Wanamaker recounts a Leo Tolstoy anecdote (1908)

Jul 24, 2014

Unable to make the 1908 Pennsylvania German Society's annual gathering due to illness, their President - the U.S. merchant, religious leader, and politician, John Wanamaker - sent in a message he recorded "through this wonderful invention of Mr. Edison on the Edison phonograph" (as he himself puts it in the intro to his message). The excerpt featured here comprises of a section in which he recounts an anecdote of Count Leo Tolstoy's, in which the Russian writer stops at the roadside and asks a farmer who is ploughing "Friend, what would you do today if you knew positively you would die tomorrow?" The farmer replies "I would keep on ploughing." Though not included in this excerpt, Wanamaker then goes on to add "I can almost hear the same words falling from the lips of a Mcnnonite or Dunker living along the Conestoga or Cocalico, Just as you hear these words from my lips a hundred and fifty miles away from where I actually am at this moment." (Mr. Wanamaker was In New York City at the time under the care of a physician). The choice of Tolstoy was an interesting one considering that some 18 years earlier Wanamaker had caused a mini-furore when, as U.S. Postmaster General at the time, he banned Tolstoy's Kreutzer Sonata from being sent in the mail, claiming that it was obscene. The decision caused him much embarrassment and condemnation in the press, the New York Times calling him a "Jack-in-Office".


text:
Nature Through Microscope and Camera (1909)

Aug 21, 2014

A selection of photo-micrographs created  by Arthur E Smith and featured in the book Nature through Microscope & Camera (1909) by Richard Kerr. Little information is given about Arthur E Smith but we do know that the photographs featured in the book "were exhibited at the Royal Society's Annual Conversazione, May 13, 1904", so Kerr tells us in the opening chapter, and "done on 12 by 10 plates directly through the microscope and camera combined as one instrument" with the negatives receiving "no 'touching-up' whatever." The stunning images are achieved by simply photographing the images seen through a microscope, a process which Arthur E Smith himself explains in the only chapter he writes in the book. The introduction by Kerr is also worth a read, couching as he does the work of micrography in terms of curing the world's ills:
There are too many places of amusement in our cities, too many trashy and pernicious novels in our free libraries ... We do not suggest photography through the microscope as the remedy for existing defects, but we think that the more our young men take up intellectual pastimes the better it will be for the nation. This is one of those pastimes. It is not a selfish one. One enthusiast is a centre of usefulness to others, for he cannot keep to himself the enjoyment he receives from the study of Nature's beauties and wonders.


text:
High Frequency Electric Currents in Medicine and Dentistry (1910)

Jul 22, 2014

A selection of images from High Frequency Electric Currents in Medicine and Dentistry (1910) by champion of electro-therapeutics Samuel Howard Monell, a physician who the American X-Ray Journal cite, rather wonderfully, as having "done more for static electricity than any other living man". Although the use of electricity to treat physical ailments could be seen to stretch back to the when the ancient Greeks first used live electric fish to numb the body in pain, it wasn't until the 18th and 19th centuries - through the work of Luigi Galvani and Guillaume Duchenne - that the idea really took hold. Monell claims that his high frequency currents of electricity could treat a variety of ailments, including acne, lesions, insomnia, abnormal blood pressure, depression, and hysteria. Although not explicitly delved into in this volume, the treatment of this latter condition in women was frequently achieved at this time through the use of an early form of the vibrator (to save the physician from the manual effort), through bringing the patient to "hysterical paroxysm" (in other words, an orgasm). These days electrotherapy has been widely accepted in the field of physical rehabilitation, and also made the news recently in its use to keep soldiers awake (the treatment of fatigue also being one of Monell's applications).


text:
Japanese Prints of Western Inventors, Artists and Scholars (1873)
Text by Adam Green
Jul 16, 2014

A set of prints depicting famous Western inventors and scholars which seem to have been produced by the Japanese Department of Education. Although The Library of Congress only gives a rough date for them, between 1850 and 1900, the University of Tsukuba Library mentions a more specific 1873, a year which would make sense given the intense period of "westernisation" going on in Japan at this time, a presumed motive behind the making of the prints depicting such stalwarts of the industrial revolution in the West as James Watt and Richard Arkwright.
If the prints are indeed the result of such a motive, that is, to encourage young Japanese to take up the mantle of such Western luminaries, then the fact that many of the figures in the pictures seem to be somewhat under siege from various foe might seem at first to be a bit of a mystery. The great naturalist John James Audubon battles with a mischievous rat who has eaten his work; the dog of historian and poet Thomas Carlyle has upset a lamp burning his papers; the wife of Richard Arkwright, inventor of the spinning-frame, smashes his creation; the developer of the Watt steam engine James Watt suffers the wrath of his impatient Aunt; pottery impresario Bernard Palissy has to burn his family's furniture to keep his kiln's fire going. The only subject portrayed in any kind of half-way happy state is John Heathcoat who is pictured presenting his wife with the first successful results of his knitting machine. Although things appear to be going wrong for our Western celebrities, the text that accompanies each image paints a slightly more positive picture, revealing the moral, something akin to "If at first you don't succeed then try again", or "Perseverance prospers". Perhaps, if seen in the context of Wakon-yōsai - "Japanese spirit and Western techniques", as mentioned in Yoshikawa Tadayasu's Questions and Themes on Progress (1867) - the illustrations might be hinting that the nation of Japan in particular has the qualities of patience, will-power, and tenacity to succeed in such fields.
The information given by the University of Tsukuba Library suggests that there were eight more prints made in addition to the six we find in the Library of Congress collection, the other Western stars featured being Josiah Wedgwood, Titian, Josué Heilmann, Robert Peel, Benjamin Franklin, Jacques de Vaucanson, William Lee, and Joshua Reynolds.
Many thanks to Ben Schlabs and Tomoko Tanaka for their help in shedding some light on the content of the Japanese text featured in each of the prints (the full Japanese transcriptions can be found on the University of Tskuba site here). We've included general summaries in English of the text (by no means word-for-word translations!) below each picture.


text:
The Man Who Recovered the Use of His Tongue, after Four Years Dumb, by means of a Frightful Dream (1747)

Jun 24, 2014

An account of an interesting case involving a man from Wiltshire being cured of many years of speechlessness through the fright arising from a nightmare. The man, Henry Axford, started to become a little hoarse with a cold on a trip to Longleat stately home (on whose grounds now sits a Center Parcs holiday village and, since 1966, the first safari park outside the continent of Africa). Henry soon lost his voice completely, and while he recovered from the cold in no time at all, he continued to not be able to make a sound. This mysterious ailment continued for four whole years until a drunken night in Stoke caused him to fall from his horse several times and finally drift into a terror-filled sleep. He dreamt he fell into a vat of boiling "Wort" - the liquid extracted from the mashing process during the brewing of beer or whisky. As Rev. Mr. Archdeacon Squire says in this account given to The Royal Society six years later, the dream "put him into so great an Agony of Fright, that, struggling with all his Might to call out for Help, he actually did call out aloud, and recovered the Use of his Tongue from, that Moment as effectually as ever he had it in his Life, without the least Hoarseness remaining, or Alteration in the old Sound of his Voice". The man was cured.


text:
The Centaurs, a Fragment (1921)

Jun 26, 2014

The only surviving fragment of Winsor McCay's now lost The Centaurs, produced in 1921 by Rialto Productions. The animation is notable for it's particular quality of line and movement way ahead of its time (20 years before Disney would reach such heights with Fantasia) and for a strange little moment when one of the centaurs strikes down a bird with a stone for seemingly no reason. McCay is best known today for his Little Nemo in Slumberland comic strip and for creating, arguably, the first true character in animation, Gertie the Dinosaur.


text:
A Journey in Other Worlds: A Romance of the Future (1894)
Text by Adam Green
Jul 10, 2014

A science fiction novel by the incredibly wealthy businessman and member of the prominent Astor family, John Jacob Astor IV, in which he offers an imagining of life in the year 2000. Astor, an amateur inventor himself (patents included a bicycle brake and turbine engine) makes a number of speculations about future technologies (some more accurate than others), including descriptions of a worldwide telephone network, solar power, air travel, space travel to the planets Saturn and Jupiter, and terraforming engineering projects — damming the Arctic Ocean, and adjusting the Earth's axial tilt (by the Terrestrial Axis Straightening Company).
The ability to travel through space is made possible by "apergy", an anti-gravitational energy force first described by Percy Greg in his 1880 novel Across the Zodiac - (In 1895, Astor would make a substantial investment in the company of John Keeley who claimed to have invented an "etheric" power similar in many ways to "apergy"). Astor describes Jupiter as a jungle world teeming with flesh-eating plants, blood-sucking bats, giant snakes and flying lizards. It's also rich in resources - iron, silver, gold, lead, copper, coal, and oil - which the Americans (now a multi-continent superpower) are quick to exploit. In contrast to Jupiter's visceral environment of dangerous creatures and money-making minerals, Saturn is an ancient world of silent spirits which provide Astor's explorers with foresight into their own deaths.
Astor himself was to meet an untimely end, being one of the 1,514 people who perished in the sinking of the RMS Titanic on April 15th 1912. The richest passenger aboard the doomed vessel, he was thought to be among the richest people in the world at the time, with a net worth of $85,000,000 when he died. Astor's prominence led to the creation of many exaggerated and unsubstantiated accounts about his actions during the sinking of the Titanic, one of the most famous being that, as the ship hit he iceberg, he quipped, "I asked for ice, but this is ridiculous." One of his major legacies was the Walforf Astoria hotel in New York, formed when his Astoria hotel was merged with the adjacent Waldorf owned by his cousin in 1897. The hotel coincidentally became the host location for the U.S. inquiries into the sinking of the Titanic.


text:
The Prophecy of the Popes (15th Century)

Jun 19, 2014

Selection of details from a 15th-century manuscript titled Vaticinia de Pontificibus depicting gloriously surreal portraits of various Popes in the midst of the prophecies relating to them. According to Wikipedia:
The mystical series of prophecies, known from their incipit as the Genus nequam prophecies ("the origin of evil"), are derived from the Byzantine Leo Oracles, a series of twelfth-century Byzantine prophecies that foretell a saviour-emperor destined to restore unity to the empire. Their poems and tempera illuminations mix fantasy, the occult, and chronicle in a chronology of the popes. Each prophecy consists of four elements, an enigmatic allegorical text, an emblematic picture, a motto, and an attribution to a pope.
The series was augmented in the fourteenth century with further prophecies, with the incipit Ascende calve ("arise, bald one"), written in imitative continuation of the earlier set, but with more overtly propagandist aims. By the time of the Council of Constance (1414–1418), both series were united as the Vaticinia de summis pontificibus and misattributed to the Calabrian mystic Joachim of Flora, thus credited to a pseudo-Joachim. There are some fifty manuscripts of this fuller collection.
This particular version of the manuscript (catalogued in the British Library as Harley 1340) consists of 30 three-quarter page miniatures attributed by the art historian Bernard Berenson to the Master of San Miniato.


text:
George (2014)

Aug 22, 2014

Film Footage: The Heart (ca. 1950), from The Prelinger Archive
Photo: Fred Holland, 1913, from The Library of Congress
See on our Tumblr here.
See more in our Animated GIFs Collection.
Bill Domonkos is an experimental filmmaker and video artist. His work combines computer animation, still photography, live footage and manipulated archive film footage. His work has been broadcast and shown internationally in cinemas, film festivals, galleries and museums. All animated GIFs published here under a CC-BY-SA license.


text:
The Expositor, or Many Mysteries Unravelled - including that of the Learned Pig (1805)

Aug 19, 2014

A wonderful book amounting to something akin to an early 19th-century version of the Masked Magician, in which the reality behind various tricks and illusions of the day are exposed - all taking place via the medium of a series of letters between W.F.P (the author William Frederick Pinchbeck) and a mysterious A.B., the recipient of the former's knowledge. The epistolary unveiling begins with arguably the most enigmatic of the tricks listed, that of the "Learned Pig", or as the excellent frontispiece refers to it "The Pig of Knowledge". In this trick, which took London by storm in the 1780s, a pig is taught to respond to commands in such a way that it appears to be able to answer questions through picking up cards in its mouth. Several years before the publication of his Expositor, Pinchbeck had himself toured his own "Pig of Knowledge" to all the major towns of the U.S. Union including, so he claims, once introducing the pig to President John Adams to "universal applause". In addition to the pig trick, as the brilliantly lengthy title of the book declares, other tricks unravelled by Pinchbeck in subsequent letters include "invisible lady and acoustic temple", "penetrating spy glasses" and the rather marvellous sounding "philosophical swan".


text:
Made in the Trenches: a WW1 Magazine Created by Soldiers (1916)

Jul 31, 2014

A magazine-style book created in 1916 and composed entirely of articles and sketches contributed by British soldiers fighting on the front lines - a light-hearted and eclectic mix of stories, poems, cartoons and, littered at regular intervals throughout, a comic series of encyclopaedic entries for military terms. Although the editor George Goodchild states in his Editorial Note that his aim was "to give a really representative idea of the life and thought of the Army as a whole", there is nothing on the pain and horrors the soldiers faced on a daily basis. This is perhaps not that surprising, given the timing of the book. With the war still raging and spirits in need of lifting, you get the sense that it's been carefully edited to exclude anything too macabre and demoralising, though it still provides a fascinating glimpse into a special kind of humour that no doubt prevailed in and amongst the terrors experienced.


text:
Flemish Mask Designs in the Grotesque Style (1555)

Jul 8, 2014

A selection of stunning mask designs from the hand of Flemish engraver Frans Huys, rooted in the "grotesque" style and composed of shapes inspired from creaturely and vegetative forms (forming a style that would later become known as "auricular"). Huys apparently based these prints on original designs by the sculptor and architect Cornelis Floris (1514-1575), who is credited with inventing this particular Flemish version of the grotesque style in about 1541. The prints come from a set published in 1555 by Hans Liefrinck (about 1518-1573), an important Antwerp publisher and print-seller. The volume - bearing the full title of "Pourtraicture ingenieuse de plusieurs façons de masques, forts utile aulx painctres, orseures, taillieurs de pierres, voirriers, & tailleurs d'images" - is thought to have contained at least 18 images and, as the title suggests, seems to have been intended as a kind of sourcebook for craftsmen and artists looking for inspiration/templates.


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Manipulus Vocabulorum: a Rhyming Dictionary from the 16th Century

Jul 3, 2014

A facsimile edition from 1867 of the very first rhyming dictionary, produced by Peter Levins in 1570. Levins (also sometimes spelt Levens) produced the book, as he states in his introduction, because "It is necessarie for makers of meeter, so that it seemeth not only to redy him that maketh, but also to give him the way to learne the arte of the same". Some scholars speculate that Levins' dictionary may have provided Spenser with some words for use in the Shepheardes Calender (and perhaps could it also of been some use to the Bard himself? The timings would work out at least). Little is known about Levins himself, though Henry Wheatley does give some scant details in his preface to this 19th-century edition, quoting a writer called Wood who talks of Levins being born in Yorkshire, England, and educated at Oxford University. He was the author of one other work we know of - The Pathway to Health - which was apparently very popular in its day. As well as being of interest for being the first rhyming dictionary, it is also of interest simply as a collection of words used at the time and also notable as the first dictionary to indicate words no longer in use.


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Little Tich and his Big Boot Dance (1900)

Jul 10, 2014

Filmed in 1900 and released in 1903, this clip from director Clément Maurice, shows the English performer Little Tich performing his famous "Big Boot Dance". Born Harry Relph, Little Tich was a 4 foot 6 inch (137 cm) tall English music hall comedian and dancer best known for his seemingly gravity-defying routine accomplished by the wearing of boots with soles 28 inches (71 cm) long. Originally gaining fame as a "blackface" artist, promoters on his 1887 U.S. tour made him drop the act (fearing the British accent would ruin the "illusion") and so in its place Little Tich developed and perfected his Big Boot Dance, a full 100 years before Michael Jackson would lean in similar fashion for his "Smooth Criminal" music video. Returning to England in the 1890s, Little Tich made his West End debut in the Drury Lane pantomimes and toured Europe before setting up his own theatre company in 1895. He continued to star in popular shows until his death from a stroke in 1928 at the age of 60.


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Mécanisme de la Physionomie Humaine

Sep 9, 2014

Animated GIF created by Bill Domonkos, using images from Benjamin Duchenne's Mécanisme de la Physionomie Humaine (1862).
By applying electrodes to male and female volunteers, Duchenne was able to activate individual muscles in the face. He saw the human face as a map, the features of which could be codified into universal taxonomies of inner states, with each muscle representing a ‘movement of the soul’. He listed 53 emotions that could be classified in terms of muscular action.
See on our Tumblr here, and the Tumblr of Bill Domonkos here.
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Bill Domonkos is an experimental filmmaker and video artist. His work combines computer animation, still photography, live footage and manipulated archive film footage. His work has been broadcast and shown internationally in cinemas, film festivals, galleries and museums. All animated GIFs published here under a CC-BY-SA license.


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The Anatomy of Drunkenness (1834)

Sep 25, 2014

The expanded fifth edition of Robert Macnish's The Anatomy of Drunkenness, a work by the Glaswegian surgeon, first published in 1827, and based on his doctoral thesis of a year two years earlier. The book examines inebriety from a wide range of angles: although that caused by alcohol is the main focus, he also explores use of opium (popular at the time), tobacco, nitrous oxide, and also other various poisons, such as hemlock, "bangue" (cannabis), foxglove and nightshade. Included in his examination are some wonderful descriptions of the different kinds of drunk according to alcohol type, methods for cutting drunkenness short, and an outlining of the seven different types of drunkard (Sanguineous, Melancholy, Surly, Phlegmatic, Nervous, Choleric and Periodical). The seventh chapter of the book examines the phenomenon of "spontaneous combustion" which apparently tends to strike drunkards in particular.


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Class of 2015

Dec 17, 2014

Pictured above is our top pick of those whose works will, on 1st January 2015, be entering the public domain in many countries around the world. Of the eleven featured, eight 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 three in countries with a 'life plus 50 years' copyright term (e.g. Canada, New Zealand, and many countries in Asia and Africa). As always it's a sundry and diverse rabble who've assembled for our graduation photo - including two giants of 20th-century abstract art, the creator of one of the world's most reproduced paintings, the creator of one of the world's best-loved children's books, and the creator of the world's most read about, and watched, Secret Service agents.
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).
Wassily Kandinsky

Considered by many to have created the first purely abstract paintings, Kandinsky was one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. At the age of 30 he dropped out of a promising career teaching law and economics to unroll in art school in Munich. The development of his art had many influences, among them Monet's later works, in particular his "Haystacks" series, the music of Wagner and the influence of the theosophical movement, including the illustrations he encountered in Besant and Leadbetter's Thought Forms (1901). Two of the key works from his early experiments in colour was The Blue Rider of 1903, and in 1908-1909 The Blue Mountain, both first steps in Kandinsky's treating colour independent of form. In his so called "Blue Rider" period, from 1911 to 1914, he began to develop his truly distinctive style, seeing his works as expressing the interior world rather than the exterior, and often using musical terms to identify his paintings. As well painting, Kandinsky was an important art theorist and taught at the influential Bauhaus School from 1922 to 1933. For the last 10 years of his life, once he'd left the Bauhaus, Kandinsky produced arguably his most abstract works and developed further his theory synthesising the aesthetic and the spiritual.
Edvard Munch

Best known for his 1893 painting The Scream, Edvard Munch was a Norwegian painter whose intensely evocative treatment of psychological themes paved the way for the development of German Expressionism in the early 20th century. Munch's early work, at times reminiscent of Manet, was fairly naturalist or impressionist in style. Under the influence of the bohemian circle based in Christiana, including the notorious nihilist Hans Jaeger (who advocated suicide as the ultimate act of freedom), Munch moved away from Impressionism and developed a style more akin to the psychological themes which fascinated him. He termed this new style "soul painting", and in in 1889 he had his first solo show which led to a a two-year state scholarship to study in Paris under French painter Léon Bonnat. Still experimenting wildly with styles (naturalism, pointillism, post-impressionism) it was not till the early 1890s that Munch first began to settle on his characteristic use of colour and swirling shapes to express often tortured inner states. As well as the various versions The Scream the 1890s was a productive time which gave birth to his "Frieze of Life" series. After an acute psychological episode in the autumn of 1908 Munch left the public eye and lived out most of his last two decades in solitude at his near self-sufficient estate in Ekely, at Skøyen, Oslo, still painting but with a focus on more pastoral subjects, celebrating farm life, many using his work horse "Rousseau" as a model.
Edith Sitwell

An avant-garde British poet, literary critic, and eldest of the three "literary Sitwells". Born into a difficult aristocratic family, to parents with whom she never felt close, Sitwell spent much of her young adult years living with her governess Helen Rootham, in London throughout World War I and the 20s and Paris during the 30s. Sitwell published her first poem in 1913 at the age of 26 and between 1916 and 1921 edited Wheels, an annual poetic anthology she created with her brothers. In the 20s, with Façade (performed behind a curtain with a hole in the mouth of a painted face), and later also with Gold Coast Customs, Sitwell began to experiment with putting poetry to the rhythms of music, in particular jazz. This innovative approach to poetry was encouraged in her frequent and infamous literary salons held at her flat in London, whose esteemed guest list of the literati included Dylan Thomas and Denton Welch. Almost as much as her radical poetry, it was Sitwells manner of dressing which caused much controversy with critics. A towering figure at six foot tall, she would often appear in public laden with gowns of brocade or velvet with gold turbans and a plethora of rings and other jewellery which can now be seen in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. As well as numerous collections of poetry Sitwell also published many prose works, including a novel I Live Under a Black Sun, based on the life of Jonathan Swift, and two biographies of Elizabeth 1, whose angular features she was said to share, as well as a birthday.
Piet Mondrian
A Dutch painter whose distinctive grid based creations - horizontal and vertical lines upon a white background adorned with red, blue and yellow blocks - proved  one of the most influential experiments with abstraction of the 20th century. Mondrian termed this non-representational work "neoplasticism" and, along with the output of fellow Dutchman Theo van Doesburg, it lay at the heart of the De Stijl movement which advocated pure abstraction  by a reduction to the essentials of form and colour. Living most of his productive life in the crucible of artistic innovation that was post-war Paris, at the outset of the war Mondrian moved London then New York where he died of pneumonia in 1944.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The name of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry will be familiar to many as the author of the extremely popular novella The Little Prince, which has been translated into more than 250 languages and is thought to be among the top three selling books in the world. Like much of his writings the story draws on Saint-Exupéry's experiences as an aviator, telling the tale of a crashed pilot's encounter with a young Prince fallen to Earth. Flying in the French army since the early 20s, with a period working in the fledgling world of international postal flight, he produced several books on the his experiences in the air, including Night Flight in 1931 which propelled him to international recognition. In 1935, he miraculously survived a desert crash over the Sahara whilst trying to break the speed record in Paris-to-Saigon air race. With his co-pilot Saint-Exupéry survived for four hallucination-filled days before a Bedouin discovered them and administered a native rehydration treatment that saved their lives. The experience would figure prominently in his 1939 memoir, Wind, Sand and Stars, winner of the US National Book Award, and is referenced also in The Little Prince. With the outbreak of World War II, Saint-Exupéry returned to the army flying in the reconnaissance squadron of the Armée de l'Air, but moved to the US and Canada after the French surrendered, in this time writing The Little Prince. Keen to get back to action he joined the Free French Air Force, for whom he mainly carried out dangerous reconnaissance missions. It was on such a mission that he disappeared in July 1944, presumed shot down and killed.
Rachel Carson

An American marine biologist and conservationist whose book Silent Spring and other writings played a pivotal role in advancing the global environmental movement. Her fourth book and most best-known, Silent Spring was published in 1962 and focused on the harmful effects of pesticides on the environment. With the book Carson helped bring environmental concerns into the mainstream and spurred a reversal in national pesticide policy, which led to a nationwide ban on DDT and other pesticides, and it inspired a grassroots environmental movement that led to the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Carson was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Jimmy Carter.
Felix Nussbaum

A German-Jewish surrealist painter whose strange and haunting works give a heart-rending glimpse into Jewish life under the Nazi-regime during WW2. In 1933, while in Rome under a scholarship of the Berlin Academy of the Arts, Nussbaum and his fellow students got a visit from Hitler's Minister of Propaganda causing Nussbaum to promptly leave his studies and in 1934 he went with his later wife Felka Platek, into exile in Brussels. After 6 highly productive years in exile, the GErmans invaded Belgian in 1940 and Nussbaum was arrested by Belgian police as a "hostile alien" and taken to the Saint-Cyprien camp in France, an experience which influenced many pictures. Eventually gaining permission to return to Germany, Nussbaum escaped en route and reunited with Felka again in Brussels where ether lived in hiding.  Without residency papers, Nussbaum had to rely on friends to provide him with shelter and art supplies so he could continue to express in art the darkness and difficulties of the next four years, producing some of his best-known work, including Self Portrait with Jewish Identity Card(1943), and Triumph of Death (1944). In July 1944, he was found by German soldiers while hiding with his now wife in an attic, and sent to Auschwitz where he was murdered a week later at the age of 39.
Filippo Tommaso Emilio Marinetti

Marinetti is an Italian poet and editor best known for his key role in the influential Futurist movement. In 1909 Marinetti wrote the Futurist Manifesto, which appeared on the front page of the most prestigious French daily newspaper Le Figaro on 20 February. Marinetti and his fellow Futurists proposed a severance with all art of the past, to "destroy the museums, the libraries, every type of academy". The movement seemed to glorify warfare which it saw as the the world's only hygiene—militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of freedom-bringers, beautiful ideas worth dying for, and scorn for woman". Of the many manifestos brought out by the group in this early period the most famous was perhaps the "Manifesto Against Past-Loving Venice" in which Marinetti demands "fill(ing) the small, stinking canals with the rubble from the old, collapsing and leprous palaces" to "prepare for the birth of an industrial and militarised Venice, capable of dominating the great Adriatic, a great Italian lake". As well as the numerous manifestos and political writings, Marinetti also produced some (mostly poorly received) poetry, as well as a novel Mafarka the Futurist, An African novel published in 1910 (after being cleared of all charges at an obscenity trial). As perhaps to be expected, with such an emphasis on militarisation and "progress", in addition to the Anarchist elements, the Futurists were also closely aligned with Fascism - with Marinetti later becoming an active supporter of Benito Mussolini. Throughout the 20s and 30s Marinetti seemed to contradict many of his anti-establishment ideas by trying to ingratiate himself with Mussolini's party. He died of cardiac arrest in Bellagio on 2 December 1944 while working on a collection of poems praising the wartime achievements of the Decima Flottiglia MAS.
Glenn Miller
One of the most influential arrangers, composers and bandleaders of the swing era. As leader one of the world's most revered big bands, Miller was the best selling recording artist from 1939 to 1944, with numerous hit recordings such as "In the Mood", "Moonlight Serenade", "Pennsylvania 6-5000", "Chattanooga Choo Choo", "A String of Pearls", "At Last", "(I've Got a Gal In) Kalamazoo", "American Patrol", "Tuxedo Junction", "Elmer's Tune", and "Little Brown Jug". IN 1942, while at the peak of fame in America Miller decide to join the war effort. At 38 his was deem dot old to be drafted but he successfully convinced Army Brigadier General Charles Young to have him lead the Army Air Force Band. He was travelling to entertain U.S. troops in France during World War 2 when aircraft disappeared in bad weather over the English Channel.
Flannery O'Connor
A writer from the American South, O'Connor was known for her distinctive Southern Gothic style with its array of morally flawed characters often existing in a at once violent but also comical religious and politically charged landscapes. Diagnosed in 1951 with  systemic lupus erythematosus, the disease that killed her father 7 years earlier, O'Connor lived out most of her short adult life on a farm on Georgia.  She wrote novels but was perhaps best known for her many short stories which, collected into posthumous  Complete Short stories, 8 years after her death, won the 1972 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction.
Ian Fleming

An English author, journalist and naval intelligence officer, best known for being the creator of James Bond in his series of twelve spy novels and two short story collections, which together have sold more than 100 million copies worldwide. The detail and depth of his James Bond stories were informed by his many years of distinguished wartime service during World War II, in particular his work with various intelligence units. At the end of the war Fleming moved into journalism becoming the Foreign Manager in the Kemsley newspaper group, which at the time owned The Sunday Times. In 1952, in just two months, he penned the first Bond book Casino Royale. He would go on to write eleven more before dying of a heart attack at the age of fifty-six.
And a few others that didn't make it to the class photo....

Ida Tarbell
Romain Rolland
Max Jacob
George Ade
March Bloch
Arthur Quiller-Couch

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 2015 see the Wikipedia pages on 1944 and 1964 deaths, 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.
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).


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Public Domain GIFs from the OKFestival 2014 Workshop

Oct 20, 2014

A selection of animated GIFs created as part of a workshop we ran at OKFestival 2014 in Berlin along with  Kati Hyyppä and Sanna Marttila. See the rest here, and feel free to add more!


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“Plantscapes” from Kerner von Marilaun’s Pflanzenleben (1887)

Oct 28, 2014

Four remarkable images from the 19th-century Austrian botanist Anton Kerner von Marilaun's Pflanzenleben, one of his most important works. Some 20 years after its initial publication in German in 1887 the work was brought to the English speaking world in a translation by F. W. Oliver under the title The Natural History of Plants their Forms, Growth, Reproduction, and Distribution. The images here come, via Wikimedia Commons, from Kurt Stüber's wonderful collection of historical botanical illustrations housed at his BioLib site, definitely worth an explore.


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Christmas Festive Bonanza Digest

Dec 22, 2014

To celebrate the festive season we have put together, just for you our beloved readers, a little Christmas digest including all our festive content from this year and those previous. Enjoy!
Greetings from Krampus
Stereoscopic Victorian Christmas GIFs
Diary Days from Christmas Past
A Pictorial History of Santa Claus
Scrooge, or, Marley’s Ghost (1901)
The Night Before Christmas (1905)
Santa Clause Conquers the Martians (1964)
Yuletide Entertainments (1910)
Santa Claus Proves There is a Santa Claus (1925)
A Christmas Sermon by Robert Louis Stevenson (1900)
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus (1897)
Illustrations of Snowflakes (1863)
The Snowflake Man of Vermont
The Christmas Angel (1904)


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The Christmas Angel (1904)

Dec 12, 2014

Originally titled Détresse et Charité (Distress and Charity), this short from French film-maker Georges Méliès tells the tale of a little beggar girl who collapses in the snow. There were two versions made for French and American audiences, each with differing endings. In the American version (shown above) the little girl is saved by passing automobilists who shower her family in gifts, a distinctly more Hollywood-style happy ending than the version shown to the French in which the girl dies and is carried off to heaven by a "Christmas Angel".


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A Young Daughter of the Picts (ca. 1585)

Dec 4, 2014

Originally thought to be one of John White's drawings from his 16th-century Virginia expedition, this colourful miniature is now attributed to the French artist Jacques Le Moyne. It does not show a North American native as first thought but rather imagines an early inhabitant of the British Isles, a member of the Picts, a group of people who lived in what is now modern-day Scotland during the Late Iron Age and Early Medieval periods. As Lisa Ford from the Yale Center for British Art notes, the image was most likely "intended to remind readers that early natives of the British Isles existed in a savage state similar to natives in the Americas". Although the Picts are often  said to have tattooed themselves, there is little actual evidence for this, though their name does seem to stem from the Latin word Picti meaning "painted or tattooed people". As Ford comments, Le Moyne's rendering of this young woman in a head-to-toe floral tattoo brings together his "two known subject areas, ethnological drawings and botanicals". Anyone clued up on their history of botany will notice that Le Moyne includes in his floral design species which were newly introduced to Western Europe at the time, and so rendering the woman in the picture slightly anachronistic.


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Greetings from Krampus

Dec 23, 2014

Have you been good this year? If not, being overlooked by the great benevolent Santa in the sky should perhaps be the least of your worries... let us introduce you to Krampus. Popular in German-speaking Alpine folklore, the figure of Krampus is a devil-like horned creature who punishes badly-behaved children during the Christmas season. As one can see from the scenes played out on the "Krampuskarten" featured below, a rather sinister form of the normal Christmas card, this punishment usually took the form of kidnapping, with Krampus often depicted whisking naughty children away to hell or some other similarly distressing location. Such cards have been exchanged in Europe since the 1800s and were particularly popular in the early part of the 20th century, often accompanied with the phrase Gruß vom Krampus (Greetings from the Krampus). The origin of Krampus is not entirely clear. Some folklorists postulate a pre-Christian origin for the figure, with the ruten, the bundle of branches he is shown holding (when not wielding chains), having significance in pre-Christian pagan initiation rites. In addition to the exchange of cards the tradition finds expression in Krampusnacht, the night preceding the Feast of St Nicholas on the 6th December, where the hairy devil appears on the streets frightening children and dispensing coal and the ruten bundles to homes and businesses.


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Beards of Time

Nov 13, 2014

The beard, being a half-mask, should be forbidden by the police. It is, moreover, as a sexual symbol in the middle of the face, obscene: that is why it pleases women.
(Arthur Schopenhauer)
Lord, I could not endure a husband with a / beard on his face: I had rather lie in the woollen.
(Beatrice in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, II.i)


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Emblems of Love, in Four Languages: Dedicated to the Ladys (1683)

Feb 12, 2015

This excellently sub-titled love emblem book from the English poet Philip Ayres is a reworking of emblems originally found in the earlier Thronus Cupidinis. Each of the forty-four cupid-centred emblems are accompanied on the facing page by a quatrain, written out in four languages: Latin, English, Spanish and French. The Quatrains sport some wonderful titles, which at times seem to come straight out of the back catalogue of Mills and Boon - "The Voluntary Prisoner", "The Timerous Adventuror" - and some which offer just straight up advice - "Be Quick and Sure", "Little by Little", "Tis Constancy that Gains the Pryze". The engravings appearing alongside depict cupid in a whole host of different scenarios, including making a barrel, hobbling on one leg, being burnt at the stake, and (seemingly) admonishing a chameleon. In addition to the emblem and quatrain pages, the book begins with a rather wonderful Sonnet, in French and English, the latter titled "Cupid to the Ladies":

Ladies,

Like the Worlds, universall Soul, if I
Do all things actuate with my Nobler Flame,
Whilst loaded Altars burn to make my name
Brighter than all who rule above the Sky.

Yet this is but reflected Majesty,
For on your Trophyes I erect my Fame,
You conquer and I triumph in the same,
So I'me a God by your Divinity.

Tis Iustice then, and tis my Interest too,
With this Acknowledgment to honour you,
And at your feet these Hieroglyphiques lay;

My Glory is to magnify your power,
Unlike to other Soveraigns, I that hover[?]
Am absolute, when I this Tribute pay.
The volume exists in a few different English versions, one of which replaces the sonnet above with a rather more mournful affair, titled "Cupid to Chloe Weeping" (see it here). Interestingly, as Alison Saunders notes in her The Seventeenth-century French Emblem: A Study in Diversity (2000), this London-published emblem book, which based on originally Dutch material, soon found its way back to the Netherlands. In this Dutch edition (see it here) the English versions of the quatrain were replaced with Dutch versions. Over the next decade the book migrated further east with a version popping up in Augsburg in 1699, this time under the title Triumphis Amoris and with German replacing the English/Dutch (see it here). The emblem book phenomenon was a truly pan-European affair, as Saunders notes, "Tracing the various migrations across Europe of the love emblems created in the Netherlands by Heinsius and Vaenius, in their various polyglot forms - emblems which, themselves, owed considerable debt to influences from other parts of Europe, shows clearly the extent to which the emblem had become a cross-European phenomenon, accessible to all reading publics either in a Latin text or in one or other of the various European vernanculars included in them."