The Public Domain Review

This is just an automatic copy of Public Domain Review blog.

Eugène von Guérard’s Australian Landscapes

Monday 15 August 2011 at 16:32

Selection from Eugène von Guérard’s Australian landscapes: a series of 24 tinted lithographs illustrative of the most striking and picturesque features of the landscape scenery of Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia & Tasmania, printed and published by Hamel & Ferguson in 1867. (See more here)















Operation Doorstep

The Spirit Photographs of William Hope

The Maps of Piri Reis

Dr Julius Neubronner's Miniature Pigeon Camera

Art in Art

Huexotzinco Codex


Sessions for the Blind at Sunderland Museum

Eugène von Guérard's Australian Landscapes

Landscape and Marine Views of Norway

The Mechanism of Human Physiognomy

Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/2011/08/15/eugene-von-guerards-australian-landscapes/


Labillardière and his Relation

Monday 15 August 2011 at 15:46

When the French explorer Lapérouse went missing, a search voyage was put together to retrace his course around the islands of Australasia. On the mission was the naturalist Jacques Labillardière who published a book in 1800 of his experiences. Edward Duyker, author of Citizen Labillardière: A Naturalist’s Life in Revolution and Exploration (1755-1834), explores the impact of his pioneering work.

Jacques-Julien Houtou de Labillardière’s Relation du voyage à la recherche de La Pérouse (1800) is a personal account of an attempt to solve a mystery which began in March 1788. After a five week sojourn–following up on James Cook’s discoveries, investigating reports of a new British colony and undertaking scientific work – the French explorer Jean-François Galaup de Lapérouse sailed out of Botany Bay, New South Wales, and was never seen again by Europeans. His disappearance was a matter of great national concern in France. Just before mounting the scaffold of the guillotine, Louis XVI is said to have asked: ‘Is there any news of M. de Lapérouse?’. In 1791, when the French National Assembly decided to send a rescue expedition, probably the first humanitarian mission on a global scale in world history, Admiral Antoine Raymond Joseph Bruny d’Entrecasteaux was chosen as the commander of its two ships: Recherche and Esperance (‘Search’ and ‘Hope’).

We know now that Lapérouse’s expedition was wrecked off Vanikoro in the Solomon Islands. Although d’Entrecasteaux sailed very close to Vanikoro, he failed to discover the fate of Lapérouse and ultimately perished during the voyage. Nevertheless, his expedition made a number of significant geographical discoveries. In Tasmania these discoveries included Recherche Bay, the D’Entrecasteaux Channel (between the mainland and Bruny Island) and the estuaries of the Huon and Derwent Rivers. In Western Australia, d’Entrecasteaux discovered Esperance Bay and surveyed the Archipelago of the Recherche. He also discovered islands in the d’Entrecasteaux group off New Guinea and named and surveyed the Huon Peninsula. Furthermore, his expedition was of considerable significance in the history of geophysics, for it returned with the first survey of global magnetic intensity, proving that it strengthens away from the equator to both north and south.

D’Entrecasteaux’s voyage also yielded significant natural history collections and ethnographic observations – including some of the earliest recorded observations of the Aboriginal people of Tasmania. The most valuable contributions in these areas was made by the naturalist Labillardière. His Relation du voyage à la recherche de La Pérouse – one of the classic works of French travel literature – published by the printer and bookseller H.-J. Jansen in the rue des Maçons, was accompanied by an atlas of impressive engravings based on sketches of scenes by Jean Piron, but also of plants by the great Pierre-Joseph Redouté and of birds by Jean-Baptiste Audebert. Labillardière’s Relation proved to be an international best seller. There were several French editions and in 1817 the Atlas was reprinted. Four English editions quickly appeared between 1800 and 1802, and German editions were published in Hamburg (1801) and Vienna (1804). Through his authorship of the Relation du voyage à la recherche de La Pérouse, Labillardière helped to usher the southern continent into the European imagination and may even have helped precipitate British pre-emptive settlement of Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania).

Labillardière would also produce what in practical terms was the first published flora of Australia: the magnificent two-volume Novae Hollandiae plantarum specimen (1804–06) containing 265 copperplate engravings. Labillardière has the distinction of having named the floral emblems of Tasmania (Eucalyptus globulus) and Victoria (Epacris impressa), as well as the genus Anigozanthus to which the floral emblem of Western Australia belongs. Later he published the first flora of New Caledonia, Sertum austro-caledonicum (1824—1825), which unlike his earlier works was not organized on Linnean lines.



Born in Alençon, Normandy, in 1755, Labillardière was the son of a lace merchant. After studies at Alençon’s Collège Royale, he studied botany and medicine at Montpellier under Antoine Gouan (a correspondent of Linnaeus), Reims and then in Paris where he came under the influence of Louis-Guillaume Le Monnier, Professor of Botany at the Jardin du Roi. He visited England in 1783 and met Sir Joseph Banks. On his return to France, Labilllardière travelled in the Alps with Dominique Villars and later Carlo Antonio Bellardi. In 1787—8, with the assistance of Le Monnier and Foreign Minister Vergennes, he collected in Cyprus, Lebanon and Syria—travels which provided the foundations for his important early work on the botany of the Near East: Icones plantarum Syriae rariorum (1791—1812). He was selected to join d’Entrecasteaux’s expedition in 1791. Labillardière was a supporter of the French Revolution and was known for his difficult temperament. After the disintegration of the d’Entrecasteaux expedition, on royalist and republican lines in the Dutch East Indies, he suffered the indignity of internment and having his natural history specimens confiscated. Fortunately for posterity, these precious collections were returned through the gracious intervention of Sir Joseph Banks.



Although the Relation hints at sympathy for the ‘transmutationist’ ideas of Lamarck, Labillardière did not develop any evolutionary notions based on his field research­. Nevertheless, his books and articles had considerable taxonomic, systematic, biogeographic and morphological significance, and it was upon such foundations that later evolutionary ecology was built. In an age when the discovery of new species and genera was often seen as the apogee of botanical pursuit, Labillardière was accorded ample kudos. Even today, some fifty of the plant genera he established survive. However, in his Relation and in a number of scientific papers, Labillardière ventured beyond a mere cataloguing of nature. He had a strong interest in applied botany and his writings contain numerous observations on subjects such as timber, plant fibres, food crops and herbal pharmacology. They also include studies of significant aspects of animal behaviour and physiology. And aside from his commercial-military strategic perceptions — such as the advantages offered by the D’Entrecasteaux Channel for a trading maritime power, or the value of cultivating New Zealand flax for naval cordage – Labillardière’s applied observations often had enduring ethnological significance. Furthermore, as an ethnographer he attempted to apply empirical methods to record the customs and social structures of indigenous communities he encountered in Australia and the Pacific. Arguably his vocabularies of native languages, as keys to cultural understanding, also beg comparison with his systematic botanical descriptions, representing as they do a necessary ordering of the natural world on the threshold of modern ecological and evolutionary understanding.

In the wake of Napoleon’s victories in Italy, Labillardière was appointed a special commissioner by the French government and to his discredit was involved in the plunder of Italian museums and libraries for France. In 1799 he married Marthe Goudes Desfriches, the twice-widowed daughter of a military surgeon, but they had no surviving children. He was elected a member of the Institut de France in 1800. Labillardière died in Paris on 9 January 1834 and is buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery. The English botanist Sir James Edward Smith named the genus Billardiera in his honour.





Edward Duyker is the author of Citizen Labillardière: A Naturalist’s Life in Revolution and Exploration (1755-1834), Miegunyah/Melbourne University Publishing, Melbourne, 2003. This biography won the New South Wales Premier’s General History Prize in 2004. He is Adjunct Professor of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Australian Catholic University, and Honorary Senior Lecturer in the Department of French Studies, University of Sydney. In 2007 he was elected a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.


Links to works


Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/2011/08/15/labillardiere-and-his-relation/


The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952)

Sunday 14 August 2011 at 19:31



Film based on Hemingway’s classic short story, directed by Henry King, and starring Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, and Susan Hayward. The story centers on the memories of a writer (Gregory Peck) who is slowly dying after developing a dangerous wound from a thorn prick while on Safari in Africa. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards; for Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction (Lyle Wheeler, John DeCuir, Thomas Little, Paul S. Fox)

Download from Internet Archive



CLIPSSHORTFULL LENGTH SILENTFULL LENGTH TALKIE
Princess Nicotine (1909) 6min

Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) 12min

Last of the Mohicans (1920) 1hr11min

Meet John Doe (1941) 2hr3min

The Unappreciated Joke (1903) 1min

Frankenstein (1910) 13min

The General (1926) 1hr19min

Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) 1hr19mins


The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots (1895) 21sec

The Great Train Robbery (1903) 10min

Wolf Blood (1925) 1hr7min

Reefer Madness (1938) 1hr8min

The Kiss (1896) 25 secs

Experiments in the Revival of Organisms (1940) 20min

Battleship Potemkin (1925) 1hr13min

The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952) 1hr57min

Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/2011/08/14/the-snows-of-kilimanjaro-1952/


The Kiss (1896)

Saturday 13 August 2011 at 14:38



“An osculatory performance by May Irwin and John Rice”…. Scene from the New York stage comedy, The Widow Jones, in which Irwin and Rice starred. According to Edison film historian C. Musser, the actors staged their kiss for the camera at the request of the New York world newspaper, and the resulting film was the most popular Edison Vitascope film in 1896. The first ever kiss to be caught on film.

Download from Internet Archive



CLIPSSHORTFULL LENGTH SILENTFULL LENGTH TALKIE
Princess Nicotine (1909) 6min

Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) 12min

Last of the Mohicans (1920) 1hr11min

Meet John Doe (1941) 2hr3min

The Unappreciated Joke (1903) 1min

Frankenstein (1910) 13min

The General (1926) 1hr19min

Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) 1hr19mins


The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots (1895) 21sec

The Great Train Robbery (1903) 10min

Wolf Blood (1925) 1hr7min

Reefer Madness (1938) 1hr8min

The Kiss (1896) 25 secs

Experiments in the Revival of Organisms (1940) 20min

Battleship Potemkin (1925) 1hr13min

The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952) 1hr57min

Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/2011/08/13/the-kiss-1896/


Experiments in the Revival of Organisms (1940)

Saturday 13 August 2011 at 14:16



A film documenting Soviet research into the resuscitation of clinically dead organisms, research which in the film appears to be successful. The experiments were conducted by Dr. S.S. Bryukhonenko in 1939 at the Institute of Experimental Physiology and Therapy, Voronezh, U.S.S.R. The film includes an introduction by the renowned British scientist Professor J.B.S. Haldane. Read a Time Magazine account of the 1943 première shown to US scientists here.

Download from Internet Archive



CLIPSSHORTFULL LENGTH SILENTFULL LENGTH TALKIE
Princess Nicotine (1909) 6min

Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) 12min

Last of the Mohicans (1920) 1hr11min

Meet John Doe (1941) 2hr3min

The Unappreciated Joke (1903) 1min

Frankenstein (1910) 13min

The General (1926) 1hr19min

Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) 1hr19mins


The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots (1895) 21sec

The Great Train Robbery (1903) 10min

Wolf Blood (1925) 1hr7min

Reefer Madness (1938) 1hr8min

The Kiss (1896) 25 secs

Experiments in the Revival of Organisms (1940) 20min

Battleship Potemkin (1925) 1hr13min

The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952) 1hr57min

Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/2011/08/13/experiments-in-the-revival-of-organisms-1940/


Battleship Potemkin (1925)

Friday 12 August 2011 at 13:25



Considered one of the most important films in the history of silent pictures, as well as possibly Eisenstein’s greatest work, Battleship Potemkin brought Eisenstein’s theories of cinema art to the world in a powerful showcase; his emphasis on montage, his stress of intellectual contact, and his treatment of the mass instead of the individual as the protagonist. The film tells the story of the mutiny on the Russian ship Prince Potemkin during the 1905 uprising.

Download from Internet Archive



CLIPSSHORTFULL LENGTH SILENTFULL LENGTH TALKIE
Princess Nicotine (1909) 6min

Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) 12min

Last of the Mohicans (1920) 1hr11min

Meet John Doe (1941) 2hr3min

The Unappreciated Joke (1903) 1min

Frankenstein (1910) 13min

The General (1926) 1hr19min

Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) 1hr19mins


The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots (1895) 21sec

The Great Train Robbery (1903) 10min

Wolf Blood (1925) 1hr7min

Reefer Madness (1938) 1hr8min

The Kiss (1896) 25 secs

Experiments in the Revival of Organisms (1940) 20min

Battleship Potemkin (1925) 1hr13min

The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952) 1hr57min

Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/2011/08/12/battleship-potemkin-1925/


Sessions for the Blind at Sunderland Museum

Tuesday 9 August 2011 at 12:39

From 1913, John Alfred Charlton Deas, a former curator at Sunderland Museum, organised several handling sessions for the blind, first offering an invitation to the children from the Sunderland Council Blind School, to handle a few of the collections. They were so successful that Deas went on to develop and arrange a course of regular handling sessions, extending the invitations to blind adults.
(Pictures courtesy of Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums)












Operation Doorstep

The Spirit Photographs of William Hope

The Maps of Piri Reis

Dr Julius Neubronner's Miniature Pigeon Camera

Art in Art

Huexotzinco Codex


Sessions for the Blind at Sunderland Museum

Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/2011/08/09/sessions-for-the-blind-at-sunderland-museum/


Huexotzinco Codex

Tuesday 9 August 2011 at 12:15

The Huexotzinco Codex is an eight-sheet document on amatl, a pre- European paper made in Mesoamerica. It is part of the testimony in a legal case against representatives of the colonial government in Mexico, ten years after the Spanish conquest in 1521. Huexotzinco (Way-hoat-ZINC-o) is a town southeast of Mexico City, in the state of Puebla. In 1521, the Nahua Indian people of the town were the allies of the Spanish conqueror Hernando Cortés, and together they confronted their enemies to overcome Moctezuma, leader of the Aztec Empire. After the conquest, the Huexotzinco peoples became part of Cortés’estates. During 1529-1530 when Cortés was out of the country, Spanish colonial administrators intervened in the daily activities of the community and forced the Nahuas to pay excessive taxes in the form of goods and services. When Cortés returned, the Nahuas joined him in a legal case against the abuses of the Spanish administrators. The plaintiffs were successful in their suit in Mexico, and later when it was retried in Spain. The record shows [in a document uncovered in the collections of the Library of Congress] that in 1538, King Charles of Spain agreed with the judgement against the Spanish administrators and ruled that two-thirds of all tributes taken from the people of Huexotzinco be returned.
(excerpt and pictures from the Library of Congress)





















Operation Doorstep

The Spirit Photographs of William Hope

The Maps of Piri Reis

Dr Julius Neubronner's Miniature Pigeon Camera

Art in Art

Huexotzinco Codex


Sessions for the Blind at Sunderland Museum

Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/2011/08/09/huexotzinco-codex/


Art in Art

Tuesday 9 August 2011 at 11:58


The Tribuna of the Uffizi (1772-78), by Johann Zoffany (1733-1810); Royal Collection, Windsor.
(annotated version here)



Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in his Gallery in Brussels (ca.1651), by David Teniers the Younger (1610–1690); Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.



Roman Ruins and Sculpture (ca.1755), by Giovanni Paolo Pannini (1692–1765); Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart.



Allegory of Sight and Smell (latter 16thC.), by Jan Brueghel (1568–1625); Prado Museum, Madrid



Art Room (1636), by Frans Francken II (1581–1642); Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna



The Gallery of Cornelis van der Geest (1628), by Willem van Haecht (1593–1637); Rubenshuis, Antwerp





Operation Doorstep

The Spirit Photographs of William Hope

The Maps of Piri Reis

Dr Julius Neubronner's Miniature Pigeon Camera

Art in Art

Huexotzinco Codex


Sessions for the Blind at Sunderland Museum

Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/2011/08/09/art-in-art/


Dr Julius Neubronner’s Miniature Pigeon Camera

Tuesday 9 August 2011 at 00:32

In 1903 Dr Julius Neubronner patented a miniature pigeon camera activated by a timing mechanism. The invention brought him international notability after he presented it at international expositions in Dresden, Frankfurt and Paris in 1909–1911. Spectators in Dresden could watch the arrival of the camera-equipped carrier pigeons, and the photos were immediately developed and turned into postcards which could be purchased.














Operation Doorstep

The Spirit Photographs of William Hope

The Maps of Piri Reis

Dr Julius Neubronner's Miniature Pigeon Camera

Art in Art

Huexotzinco Codex


Sessions for the Blind at Sunderland Museum

Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/2011/08/09/dr-julius-neubronners-miniature-pigeon-camera/