The Public Domain Review

NEW ESSAY — Arnoud Visser on the stock character of the pedant and his association with individual superiority, social distinction, and sexual transgression, finding a form of satire that took aim at the Renaissance humanist’s erudition and lofty ideals: publicdomainreview.org/essay/parodies…

Illustration from Nonsenseorship (1922). In this “levititious literary escapade” — as publisher George P. Putnam describes his anthology — some of the wittiest writers of the Jazz Age lambaste the nonsensically censorious atmosphere of prohibition-era US: publicdomainreview.org/collection/non…

Before Cousteau, way before @Octonauts, explorer Eugen von Ransonnet-Villez was bringing images of the undersea world to the surface, from his artist’s sketch pad inside a glass and steel diving bell: publicdomainreview.org/collection/und…

Kevin Duong's essay “Flash Mob: Revolution, Lightning, and the People’s Will” explores how leading French revolutionaries, in need of a symbol to represent the all important “will of the people”, turned to the thunderbolt: publicdomainreview.org/essay/flash-mo…

#Onthisday in 1789, the Bastille was stormed in Paris, a key turning point of the French Revolution. 3.5 years later Louis XVI was executed by guillotine. We look at the deluge of prints that emerged depicting his death publicdomainreview.org/collection/exe… #FeteNationale #bastilleday #otd

"The Habitations of the Sentient Beings According to the Burmese" — from The Thirty-Seven Nats: A Phase of Spirit Worship Prevailing in Burma (1906) by William Griggs. One of a few images from the book available as prints from our online shop: publicdomainreview.org/shop/search/?q…

In his essay “The Spiralist”, Kevin Dann leads us into the gyre of James Bell Pettigrew’s Design in Nature (1908), a provocative and forgotten exploration of the world’s archetypal whorl: publicdomainreview.org/essay/the-spir…

“Brilliant Visions: Peyote among the Aesthetes”, @MikeJayNet on how the 1890s saw the first systematic explorations by non-indigenous Americans and Europeans into the powerful psychedelic effects of mescaline: publicdomainreview.org/essay/brillian…

Hidden face in a landscape by the great Bohemian etcher Wenceslaus Hollar, who was born #onthisday in Prague in 1607. More eyes in the hills here: publicdomainreview.org/collection/the… #otd

Vase of Flowers, by Jan Davidsz de Heem, ca. 1660. De Heem was one of the greatest painters of still lifes in the Netherlands, combining a brilliance and harmony of colour along with an accurate rendering of objects. Buy print here: publicdomainreview.org/product/vase-o…

#SundayReads — @DemetraVg on Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, one of the strangest and most influential books of the quattrocento, at once a story of lost love and a fever dream of antiquity: publicdomainreview.org/essay/hypnerot…

Circular snapshots from the very first @Kodak camera (the first truly portable camera) — invented by George Eastman who was born #onthisday in New York in 1854. more examples here: publicdomainreview.org/collection/kod… #OTD

Happy birthday to the essayist, poet, and philosopher Henry David Thoreau, born #onthisday in 1817 in Concord, Massachusetts. Here's a typically rhapsodic entry for Christmas Day from his journals. #otd (More Christmas Day journal entries here: publicdomainreview.org/collection/dia…)

The 3 stages of the “Dripping Sheet”.⁠ ⁠ Illustrations from Practical Hydrotherapy: A Manual for Students and Practitioners (1909) by Dr Curran Pope. More here: publicdomainreview.org/collection/pra…

In his essay “Colonizing the Cosmos”, @irmorus1 joins the interplanetary safari that is John Jacob Astor’s A Journey in Other Worlds, a high-voltage scientific romance in which visions of imperialism haunt a supposedly “perfect” future — publicdomainreview.org/essay/colonizi…

From "Shtetl, My Destroyed Home: A Remembrance" (1922), a set of 30 lithographs by the Jewish artist Issachar Ber Ryback. In the series Ryback depicts scenes from his home village in Ukraine before it was destroyed in the pogroms following WW1. More here: publicdomainreview.org/collection/sht…

Totes Meer (Dead Sea), 1940-1, by English artist Paul Nash, who died #onthisday in 1946. See more of his art depicting both the First and Second World War here: publicdomainreview.org/collection/the… #OTD

Six Plays of the Yiddish Theatre (1916) was an anthology of six plays by four leading Yiddish-language playwrights of the early 20th century, including Sholem Aleichem and Sholem Asch: publicdomainreview.org/collection/six…

Dramatic scenes from the auto polo fad of the 1910s and 20s. Reaching top speeds of 40mph, a driver would be accompanied by a malletman who would hold on to the side and attempt to hit a basketball toward the goal of the opposing team. More here: publicdomainreview.org/collection/aut…

Double-exposure photograph, staged for Century magazine in 1899, showing Nikola Tesla — born #onthisday in 1856 — seated beneath a giant “magnifying transmitter”, arcing 22-foot-long bolts of electricity: publicdomainreview.org/collection/nik…

Happy birthday Marcel Proust, born #onthisday in 1871. Celebrate with our post exploring the artworks he mentions in Swann's Way (the 1st volume of his great A la recherche du temps perdu), including paintings by Giotto, Botticelli, and Poussin: publicdomainreview.org/collection/pai… #otd