The Public Domain Review

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

The Flower of Battle: Italian Fighting Manual (ca. 1410)

Thursday 1 June 2017 at 18:39

15th-century how-to guide in the art of combat, including unarmed, with daggers, swords, poleaxes and on horseback.

Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/italian-fighting-manual-ca-1410/


Gustav Wunderwald’s Paintings of Weimar Berlin

Wednesday 31 May 2017 at 16:43

The Berlin of the 1920s is often associated with a certain image of excess and decadence, but it was a quite different side of the city — the sobriety and desolation of its industrial and working-class districts — which came to obsess the painter Gustav Wunderwald. Mark Hobbs explores.

Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/2017/05/31/gustav-wunderwalds-paintings-of-weimar-berlin/


Book of French Textile Samples (1863)

Tuesday 30 May 2017 at 18:37

This delightful book features a collection of nineteenth-century textile samples — in the form of watercolour copies — from the Robert Maison company.

Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/book-of-french-textile-samples-1863/


Photographs of Sea Stars (1917)

Wednesday 24 May 2017 at 19:12

Strangely alluring images from a report by German zoologist Ludwig Heinrich Philipp Döderlein on starfish collected during the Siboga Expedition around Indonesia.

Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/photographs-of-sea-stars-1917/


Public and Private Life of Animals (1877)

Tuesday 23 May 2017 at 19:04

Collection of acerbic animal fables, penned by the likes of Honoré de Balzac and George Sand, and illustrated by the brilliant J. J. Grandville.

Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/public-and-private-life-of-animals-1877/


Growing Things: A Film Lesson in “Nature Study” (1928)

Thursday 18 May 2017 at 17:05

Gardening lessons from the late 1920s, centreing on the cultivation of beans, including some wonderful time-lapse footage and inter-titles to match.

Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/growing-things-a-film-lesson-in-nature-study-1928/


Stuffed Ox, Dummy Tree, Artificial Rock: Deception in the Work of Richard and Cherry Kearton

Wednesday 17 May 2017 at 17:54

John Bevis explores the various feats of cunning and subterfuge undertaken by the Kearton brothers — among the very first professional wildlife photographers — in their pioneering attempts to get ever closer to their subjects.

Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/2017/05/17/stuffed-ox-dummy-tree-artificial-rock-deception-in-the-work-of-richard-and-cherry-kearton/


The War Art of Paul Nash (1917–1944)

Thursday 11 May 2017 at 18:48

Depictions of the destroyed and broken landscapes of the First and Second World War by the English artist Paul Nash, amongst the most important landscape artists of the twentieth century.

Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/the-war-art-of-paul-nash-1917-1944/


Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote (1867)

Wednesday 10 May 2017 at 18:23

From whole multi-paragraph excerpts to single lines, this wonderful little book dedicates itself, as the title declares, to presenting the wit and wisdom to be found in Miguel de Cervantes' masterpiece.

Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/wit-and-wisdom-of-don-quixote-1867/


The Maps of Matrakçı Nasuh, Ottoman Polymath

Tuesday 9 May 2017 at 18:13

Exquisite miniatures of 16th-century Persia by Bosnian-born Ottoman polymath and all-round genius Matrakcı Nasuh.

Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/the-maps-of-matrakci-nasuh-16th-century-polymath/