ARS MAGNA PROJECT

Intercultural Alchemy

[publicdomainreview]

For #InternationalTigerDay… “Tigerlillia Terribilis” — from Edward Lear’s Nonsense Botany (1871–77).

More here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/edward-lears-nonsense-botany-1871-77 #InternationalTigerDay2022

[publicdomainreview]

Page from Thesaurus of Alchemy, ca. 1725. More wondrous illustrations from the world of alchemy here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-surreal-art-of-alchemical-diagrams

[publicdomainreview]

Gerard K O'Neill design from the 1970s for a space station colony — 2 cylinders rotate in opposite directions to provide artificial gravity and keep the station aimed at the sun. A similar colony appears at the end of Interstellar (2014). More here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/space-colony-art-from-the-1970s

[publicdomainreview]

Frontispiece to Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things (1904), a book of traditional Japanese ghost stories compiled by the great scholar and translator Lafcadio Hearn, who was born #onthisday in 1850. Read the book here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/kwaidan-stories-and-studies-of-strange-things-1904 #otd

[publicdomainreview]

Posters for Harry Kellar (1849–1922) the hugely popular US magician who inspired the likes of Harry Houdini, and reportedly acted as model for the bald-headed wizard in the The Wonderful Wizard of Oz published in 1900 — https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/harry-kellar-s-show-posters

[publicdomainreview]

The art of arranging marine algae into designs, bouquets, and even sometimes intricate little scenes, was surprisingly popular in the 19th century. See an album of such pictures by a woman named Eliza A. Jordson here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/album-of-seaweed-pictures-1848

[myjetpack]

My latest @guardian book cartoon

[r-truth]

[gischtglas]

[hybernating-bear]

That's because this is Silmarillion

[the-commonplace-book]

[publicdomainreview]

OnThisDay in 1821, after more than 5 years in exile on St Helena, #Napoleon died. While imprisoned on the remote island, le petit caporal started learning English. One resident of the island called his English “the oddest in the world”. — https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/napoleons-englich-lessons #OTD

[publicdomainreview]

Extract from The Hasheesh Eater (1857) by novelist/journalist Fitz Hugh Ludlow. Terence McKenna would describe Ludlow as “Part genius, part madman, … halfway between Captain Ahab and PT Barnum, a kind of Mark Twain on hashish”: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-hasheesh-eater-1857?utm_content=buffer93dad&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer #fourtwenty #four20

[publicdomainreview]

Mark Twain died #onthisday in 1910. The best known of his books is Huckleberry Finn, not so well known is Jap Herron which, according to a woman named Emily Grant Hutchings, he dictated from beyond the grave via a ouija board… https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/jap-herron-a-novel-written-from-the-ouija-board-1917 #OTD

[publicdomainreview]

Total Eclipse of the Sun, 1882. Chromolithograph after a pastel drawing by astronomer, artist, and amateur entomologist Étienne Léopold Trouvelot, who died on this day in 1895.

More on his life and stunning astronomical art here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-trouvelot-astronomical-drawings-1882

[deathandmysticism]

Alice Morse Earle, Sun dials and roses of yesterday, 1902

[publicdomainreview]

Dream Vision; A Nightmare (1525), by Albrecht Dürer, who died #onthisday in 1528. The watercolour and accompanying text describe an apocalyptic dream he had on the night of 7-8th June 1525.

More art depicting #dreams here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-art-of-dreams #OTD

[publicdomainreview]

One of many wonderful full-page watercolour illustrations in a 16th-century edition of Pedanius Dioscorides’s work on herbal medicine, De Materia Medica (ca. 80 AD). More here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/watercolours-from-a-16th-century-de-materia-medica

[publicdomainreview]

Born #onthisday in Wisconsin in 1868, the US photographer and ethnologist Edward S. Curtis. Here’s his circa 1914 series depicting the ceremonial dress and masks of the Kwakwaka’wakw, an indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast — https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/edward-curtis-photographs-of-kwakwaka-wakw-ceremonial-dress-and-masks-ca-1914

[publicdomainreview]

A few of the stunning illustrations from a 16th-century treatise on comets — known as The Comet Book — created anonymously in Flanders (now northern France).

More info and images from the book here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-comet-book