Online journal exploring works from the history of art, literature, and ideas. Featuring 300+ essays — ✍️ submissions welcome. Also 900+ prints in our shop!
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NEW ESSAY — “Veronese's Dogs”: 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: publicdomainreview.org/essay…
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Born #onthisday in 1641, the very aptly-named Nehemiah Grew — an English botanist who was the first to depict the inner structure and function of plants in all their splendorous intricacy. ⠀
More of his images here: publicdomainreview.org/colle… #otd
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Frontispiece to Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things (1904), a classic collection of Japanese ghost stories compiled and translated by Lafcadio Hearn, who died in Tokyo #onthisday in 1904. Read its wonderful stories here: publicdomainreview.org/colle… #OTD
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#OnThisDay in 1940, the philosopher, literary critic, and essayist Walter Benjamin died by suicide in the Spanish border town of Portbou whilst on the run from the Nazis. Here's Anca Pusca on the relevance of Benjamin’s oeuvre in a digital age: publicdomainreview.org/essay… #otd
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“Bill of mortality” from the Great Plague's deadliest week, which ended #onthisday in 1665.
In addition to "Plague", and other expected maladies, we see deaths assigned to more enigmatic causes such as “Frighted”, “Winde”, “Planet” + “Teeth”.
More here publicdomainreview.org/colle…
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Recording by the legendary musicologist Alan Lomax of Abner Boggs singing a heartrending rendition of the popular murder ballad The False Young Man in 1937: publicdomainreview.org/colle…
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See all 19 issues of 391, the Dadaist arts review created by Francis Picabia in Barcelona in 1917 and published over the next 7 yrs from NYC, Zurich, and Paris: publicdomainreview.org/colle…
Pictured here, a version of Duchamp's famous L. O. O. H. Q., which appears in issue 12, 1920.
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Who's drunk?
One of the so-called “shadow pictures” from Temperance Stories and Sketches (1879) by Edward Carswell — a collection tales, poems, and illustrations warning readers against the perils of alcohol, tobacco, and gambling. More here: publicdomainreview.org/colle…
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Born #onthisday in 1889, CK Scott Moncrieff, whose epic English translation of Proust’s A la recherche du temps perdu is widely hailed as a masterpiece in its own right. His rendering of the title is not, however, considered a high point... publicdomainreview.org/essay… #otd
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“Progress in Play: Board Games and the Meaning of History”, Alex Andriesse on the world of 18/19th-century board games in which players progress chronologically through history itself: publicdomainreview.org/essay…
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Croatian Tales of Long Ago — a seminal collection of short stories by the acclaimed children's author Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić. The illustrations in this 1922 edition are by Croatian artist Vladimir Kirin: publicdomainreview.org/colle…
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Shadows from the Walls of Death (1874) gathers real swaths of poisonous arsenic wallpaper sourced from stores across Michigan. Originally printed in a run of 100 copies, only 6 remain due to recipients fearfully destroying their copies: publicdomainreview.org/colle…
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Burlesquing the Augustan era’s fixation on classical tradition, John Gay's Trivia: or, the Art of Walking the Streets of London (1716) renders practical advice for perambulating the capital into oftentimes absurd, hexametric verse: publicdomainreview.org/colle…
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“God the Creator”, opening illustration to a stunning 14th-century manuscript known as the Holkham Bible Picture Book. Explore more of its glorious depictions of bible scenes here: publicdomainreview.org/colle…
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Cleopatra tableau in New Zealand, 1914, captured in the subtle hues of an autochrome, early colour photo technique. See more autochromes from early 20th-century New Zealand in the collection of the Te Papa museum: publicdomainreview.org/essay…
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Miniatures, likely by Alī Khan, illustrating an 1825 manuscript on Indian customs, culture, and caste, penned entirely in Persian by James Skinner, an enigmatic figure of the early British Raj. More here: publicdomainreview.org/colle…
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Crouching down to where sky and ground meet, a traveler pushes his head through a gap and into the heavens beyond.
Known as the “Flammarion Engraving” this image has long stumped scholars: is it a lost Renaissance engraving or a 19th-century pastiche? — publicdomainreview.org/colle…
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“Beastly Clues: T. S. Eliot, Torquemada, and the Modernist Crossword” in which @roddyhj reveals the literary pleasures and imaginative creatures lurking in the lively grids of cryptic #crossword pioneer Torquemada: publicdomainreview.org/essay…
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Amongst the assorted curiosities described in Olaus Magnus' 1555 tome on Nordic life was the morse — a hirsute, fearsome walrus-like beast, that was said to snooze upon cliffs while hanging by its teeth: publicdomainreview.org/essay…
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The "Bed Series" was a set of intimate portraits of lesbian sex workers made by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in the 1890s behind the scenes at a Parisian brothel.
More here: publicdomainreview.org/colle…
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Card from the autumn "suit" of the Astronomia playing card deck, 1829.
Featuring 3 other seasonal suits the pack was used to play two games — Conjunction and Combination — which were trumps-based, similar to Whist. More images of the cards here: publicdomainreview.org/colle… #autumn
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