The Public Domain Review
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Slavdom Unearthed: Marian Wawrzeniecki’s Neopagan Paintings (1891–1923)
A neopagan visual archive meant to rival the iconic power of the Christian West.
Wonderful Weather: Floods and Foreboding in 17th-Century Britain
When the Bristol Channel flooded in 1607, it was not just one of the worst natural disasters in British history, it was also a sign, for many, that they had strayed from the path of God. Erik Crnkovich examines the overlap of miraculous weather and the early modern printing industry, which…
Albrecht Dürer’s Monument to the Vanquished Peasants (1525)
The design for a difficult-to-interpret monument that was never intended to be built.
“Earth Not a Globe”: Parallax’s Zetetic Astronomy (1865)
A book more or less responsible for the revival of Flat Earth theories in the modern period.
Immortal Beloved: Krishna and Rādhā Exchanging Clothes (ca. 1700–1900)
Indian images that grapple with the unbearable fact that lover and beloved are not one.
“Men with Queer Nerves”: The Jumping Frenchmen of Maine
In the late nineteenth century, visitors to Maine observed something strange: French-Canadian lumberjacks who, at the slightest stimulus, seemed to jump, strike out with their limbs, or mimic languages they could not speak. Ross Bullen introduces us to these so-called “Jumping Frenchmen” and to…
Rudolf Kalvach’s Wiener Werkstätte Postcards (1907)
Postcards that summon medieval grotesques and brightly coloured folk art, but also feel distinctly modern.
Paul Carus’ The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil (1899)
A history of the Evil One, from the earliest times to the present.
The Alchemical Transformations of the Mutus Liber (1677)
Carl Jung’s copy of the “mute book”, an alchemical manual charting (through a series of images) the “humid way” of forging the Philosopher’s Stone.
Philip Sidney and the Extreme (Dis)graces of the Parenthesis
Erasmus called them “little moons” and George Puttenham praised them as “figures of tolerable disorder” (if used not too often “nor too thick”). For Philip Sidney, they were simply indispensable. Florence Hazrat introduces us to the uncontested early modern king of brackets and to his romance…
“There is Nothing but Immortality!”: Walt Whitman and The Book of Heavenly Death (1905)
Choice excerpts from *Leaves of Grass* that speak to Whitman’s conception of immortality.
Anatomy Unzipped: John of Arderne’s Sweden Scroll (ca. 1425–35)
Early surgical diagrams that present patients prying themselves open for our anatomical gaze.
In Company Style: Illustrations from James Skinner’s Kitāb-i tashrīḥ al-aqvām (1825)
An illuminated Persian manuscript about customs, culture, and caste, written by an enigmatic figure of the early British Raj.
Veronese's Dogs
“Oh, if I could only pray”, Luther once said of his dog Tölpel, “the way this dog watches the meat”. Attending to attentive canine figures in half a dozen paintings by Paolo Veronese, Thomas W. Laqueur explores the work of an artist whose love of dogs landed him in hot water with the Inquisition.
It’s “A Cat-astrophe”! (1919)
“A Cat-astrophe” came on the tail end of an odd 1918 boom in cat-themed music.
Metamorphosis: Transformations in the Early Modern Flap Book (early 19th century)
By manipulating paper flaps, the child could turn Adam into Eve into a mermaid, a lion into a griffin into an eagle — all while learning about the inevitability of death.
The Ties that Bind: Central Asian Ikat (ca. 19th century)
Vibrant textiles from the dazzling Timurid metropolis of Bukhara.
Artificial Intelligence: Ars Notoria and the Promise of Instant Knowledge
Centuries before Neo instantly mastered Kung Fu in *The Matrix*, medieval scholars found a shortcut to years of difficult study: a magical manuscript that promised to fast-track advanced learning. Anne Lawrence-Mathers investigates the *Ars notoria*, its supposed powers, and the demonic influence…
Photographs of Atlantic City Sand Sculpture (ca. 1880–1920)
Photographs from when Atlantic City beaches featured artists ornately sculpting sand.
“The Persian Mâr-Nâmeh or, The Book for Taking Omens from Snakes” (1892)
A Zoroastrian text about serpents translated by the President of the Bombay Anthropological Society.
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