Unbridled Passions: The Eight Horses of King Mu, Son of Heaven (ca. 1300) — The Public Domain Review
Particularly famous for his skill at depicting horses, Zhao believed that he had the ability to capture animals’ inner essence with his brush. The practice of evaluating steeds like this…
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The Blinkered Flâneur: Walking with Franz Hessel in 1920s Berlin — The Public Domain Review
It’s curious, for a book purportedly about walking, how much Hessel enjoys whizzing around the city in fast cars and on public transport. During the book’s centrepiece, a longer section…
Read more »Wayang Kulit: Raden Soelardi’s Illustrations of Javanese Puppets (1919)
Illustrations of Javanese wayang kulit puppets with vivid colour and gilding. Source link
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Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s *Herland* (1915) — The Public Domain Review
Perhaps most surprising, however, especially given Gilman’s own romantic entanglements with women, is that before the men arrive, Herland is entirely sexless. There is no hint of lesbianism here: the…
Read more »Calicornication: Postcards of Giant Produce (1909) — The Public Domain Review
In the series of exaggeration postcards collected below, it is California that takes center stage. Produced by the prolific San Francisco–based publisher Edward H. Mitchell, each card features a single…
Read more »Fear and Fragility: The Glass Delusion and Its History — The Public Domain Review
Three centuries later, Foucault argued that Descartes hadn’t just excluded the glass man from his rationality — he had employed him. “The man who imagines he is made of glass…
Read more »Doing Impressions: Monet’s Early Caricatures (ca. late 1850s)
Moneymaking caricatures by a teenage Monet, before he turned to Impressionism. Source link
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“Wretches, Speak Evil of Me”: Goethe and Schiller’s Xenions (1896 edition)
One of the most elaborate works of literary insult ever written. Source link
Read more »Elizabeth I’s Manuscript Copy of Pierre Boaistuau’s *Histoires Prodigieuses* (1559) — The Public Domain Review
Beelzebub has, Boaistuau claims, been incarnated on earth in two places. First he ruled over the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, where he pretended to give oracles in exchange for…
Read more »The Great Majority: Body Snatching and Burial Reform in 19th-Century Britain — The Public Domain Review
From the surviving testimony of resurrection men, it is clear that pauper burial grounds, without guards or mortuaries, were favoured hunting grounds. Pauper grave-pits were often left open until the…
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