The Public Domain Review

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

Beast in the Blood: Jean Denis and the “Transfusion Affair”

Wednesday 22 March 2023 at 12:42

During the late 1660s in Paris, transfusing the blood of calves and lambs into human veins held the promise of renewed youth and vigour. Peter Sahlins explores Jean Denis’ controversial experiments driven by his belief in the moral superiority of animal blood: a substance that could help redeem the fallen state of humanity.

Source: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/beast-in-the-blood-jean-denis-and-the-transfusion-affair


Martin Frobenius Ledermüller’s Microscopic Delights (1759–63)

Wednesday 22 March 2023 at 12:42

These 18th-century microscopic illustrations offer wonderful glimpses into the minutiae of the natural world.

Source: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/microscopic-delights


Chaos Bewitched: Moby-Dick and AI

Tuesday 21 March 2023 at 09:33

Eigil zu Tage-Ravn asks a GTP-3-driven AI system for help in the interpretation of a key scene in Moby-Dick (1851). Do androids dream of electric whales?

Source: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/chaos-bewitched-moby-dick-and-ai


Beetle Carapaces in Basohli Miniature Paintings (ca. 1660–1700)

Thursday 16 March 2023 at 08:39

Rising to prominence in the seventeenth century, the Basohli School of painting is particularly known for its vibrant use of color and inventive textural elements — including iridescent beetle carapaces.

Source: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/basohli-beetle-paintings


Cultus Arborum: A Descriptive Account of Phallic Tree Worship (1890)

Tuesday 14 March 2023 at 07:59

Offering hundreds of examples from religious history, this book was part of a larger Phallic Series of treatises by Hargrave Jennings.

Source: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/phallic-tree-worship


Picturing Pregnancy in Early Modern Europe

Wednesday 8 March 2023 at 07:46

When the womb began to appear in printed images during the 16th century, it was understood through analogy: a garden, uroscopy flask, or microcosm of the universe. Rebecca Whiteley explores early modern birth figures, which picture the foetus in utero, and discovers an iconic form imbued with multiple kinds of knowledge: from midwifery know-how to alchemical secrets, astrological systems to new anatomical findings.

Source: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/picturing-pregnancy-in-early-modern-europe


Atlas of the Munsell Color System (1915)

Tuesday 7 March 2023 at 10:33

Munsell envisioned his atlas as a system akin to musical notation, which would liberate visual description from commercially-driven colour names.

Source: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/munsell-atlas


“March of Intellect” Cartoons (1828–29)

Thursday 2 March 2023 at 10:18

In their imagination and satire, these prints reflected debates about education reform and the dissemination of knowledge in 1820s Britain.

Source: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/march-of-the-intellect


Law and Ordure: Scatalogic Rites of All Nations (1891)

Tuesday 28 February 2023 at 10:35

In this strange book, marked “not for general perusal”, the use of excrement in medicine, magic, and culture is elevated to a universal aspect of human life.

Source: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/scatalogic-rites


Images from the Collective Unconscious: Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn and the Eranos Archive

Wednesday 22 February 2023 at 10:34

In the 1930s, Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn, mystic and founder of the multidisciplinary Eranos forum, began compiling a diverse visual archive that would allow dreamers to cross-reference their visions with the entirety of cultural history. Frederika Tevebring explores this grandiose undertaking and its effect on the archivist, as images from the collection began to blur with her psyche.

Source: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/images-from-the-collective-unconscious