Kernels

Reed College in Oregon recently posted a wonderful exhibition site called: 'Architecture, Restoration, and Imaging of the Maya Cities of Uxmal, Kabah, Sayil, and Labná', which includes a raft of vintage book images as well as comparative modern photographs relating to Yucatan in Mexico. The grotesque mask figures above are details from Frédéric de Waldeck's 'Voyage Pittoresque et Archéologique dans la Province d’Yucatan (Amérique Centrale), Pendant Les Années 1834 et 1836', published in 1838 (courtesy of University of Cincinnati Library).















Peder Ascanius was a Norwegian zoologist and mineralogist as well as being a student and correspondent of Carl Linneaus. I *think* the natural history series relating to Scandinavia he released was made up of five volumes, although only the first book appears to be online. 'Icones rerum naturalium, eller teigninger til natural-historiens oplysning og forbædring; förste hæfte' was first published in 1767. Volume One (includes ten exquisite hand coloured plates) is available from the Center for Retrospective Digitization in Göttingen (GDZ). [The images above have been extensively spot cleaned] {via the fantastic Animal Base at Göttingen}

Diagrams of Newar Yogic Six-Chakra Transformation
Watercolour on paper (c. 1850) from the Bhaktapur National Museum, Nepal.

"A standing yogic practitioner is depicted with each of his six chakras marked by a geometric symbol representing that particular chakra. Earth is the yellow square, water is the skull cup in the abdomen, fire is the red triangle, air is the double triangle, space is the blue lotus, and full attainment is the small white spiral in the red triangle resting on the thousand petaled lotus of attainment. Various meditations utilize these elements in a variety of ways with envisioned drops moving up and down channels connecting the chakras."
From the exhibition site: 'The Circle of Bliss - Buddhist Meditational Art' at the Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio State University.





The famous squid engraving from Albertus Seba's 'Cabinet of Natural Curiosities' (1734-1767) (in colour from Taschen). The illustration above was spliced from screencaps from a current Sothebys natural history catalogue - requires registration.





This baboon illustration (also spliced from screencaps from the same Sothebys catalogue as above) comes from Baron Von Nicolas Henri Jacob's 'Storia Naturale Delle Scimie' (Natural History of Apes), 1812. Jacob acknowledged that his book "was based on the work of Buffon, Cuvier, Geoffroy, Daubenton, Lacepede, Latreille and Audebert, but follows its own attractive method of presentation."*

Allegory of the Five Obstinate Monsters (anonymous)

Aeron of Monster Brains found this wonderful illustration at the Rijksmuseum (search on 'monsters'). It is dated between 1575-1618. Is this - as my nearly non-existent latin wildly imagines - depicting or warning about a psychiatric disturbance (..contraria menteis..)??

'The New Goose Game' (c.1900)

'The Celebrated Gargantua' (c. 1840)

'The Miraculous Distillery for Ridding Husbands of Their Bad Habits' (1839)

Philadelphia Art Museum kindly passed on large versions of the above illustrations relating to their upcoming exhibition: 'Curious and Commonplace: European Popular Prints of the 1800s' (May 31-August 24, 2008) Click on the Press link at the top of the page for some more small example prints. [thanks Sara!]




From the interesting Alchemy series © Suzanne Treister, modelled after Böhme, Kircher, Flood and probably other yesteryear esotericists. Treister has an extensive portfolio of artistic work in a variety of media. [via thingsmag and elsewhere]





Title page from 'Geißlung Procession' by Andreae Conrad (1608) from HAB (no other illustrations). I thought it was a picture of a beer, hotdog and whipping session. I found it in the theology section.

Diorama 4 © Oscar Sanmartin Vargas

Gollus finds all the best things at Recogedor. It's definitely worth adding the site to your feed or blog rounds. In this case I'm sorry to say that the website of the artist expired two days ago. Oscar Sanmartin Vargas from Zaragoza in Spain produces some wonderfully dark and surreal drawings (although they might be etchings), as well as paintings and dioramas.

Of his work Sanmartin says: "I am interested in provoking a sense of unease".

Fortunately there is other material scattered around the web and these links below are surely incomplete...

• Mixed media dioramas (source of above image).
• UPDATE: Oscar wrote (May 2011) to advise he now has a blog that features some of his works.
  
• A short (Spanish) review of the book, 'Leyendario' - see the youtube video at the bottom of the page which features some of Sanmartin's illustrations for the book. [short note and details in English]
• RedAragon have some small illustrations together with a biography and interview ('Entrevista') [all in Spanish]

'Cudowne Bajki' by Adolf Dygasinski.

A beautifully designed and printed book from 1925, available at the Polish Digital Library (note the 6-dotted thumbnail icon top left)







Mayor Michel-Etienne Turgot (Prevot des Marchands de Paris) commissioned Louis Bretez to prepare a map of Paris in 1734. Five years later, twenty engraved sheets (by Claude Lucas) were delivered that measured eight by ten feet when assembled. This is a superb map with incredible detail and the bird's eye view style seems all the more remarkable for having been produced some fifty years prior to the first balloon flight.
Known as the Turgot Map, it is possible to see it at very high resolution at Harvard University. Alternatively, a lower resolution (but easier?) version can be seen at Kyoto University.




Thanks to Lisa for passing on this scan from the 'Illustrated Sydney News' from 23 December 1882. It appears in the 1981 book, 'Christmas in the Colonies' by Maisy Stapleton and Patricia Mc Donald. I would love to get a great quality image of the original illustration. I'm sure I've seen the work before ... somewhere.







'The Beauties of Flora : with botanic and poetic illustrations, being a selection of flowers drawn from nature arranged emblematically : with directions for colouring them', 1834 by Eliza Eve Gleadall is on display at Wisconsin University Library (note the 'gallery view' in the sidebar). [some background]




From: 'De Salamandrae Terrestris Vita, Evolutione, Formatione Tractatus' (1827) by Adolph Friedrich Funk from Harvard University at the Internet Archive (there were one or two other salamander dissection images from memory).




--Follow my personal bookmarks, for all the biblioartlibraryscienceillustratexhibtion goodness that grabs my attention.
--Or follow the BibliOdyssey bookmarks for tagged and summarised listings of all the (840+) posts that appear on this site - this is updated at about the same time as the post appears on the site.