Restorations of Public Domain Images Pictures from Documents in the Public Domain, with technical enhancements and minor editing to make them viewable online and re-usable.

What are these technical enhancements? What do you mean minor editing?

R.I.P. Coilhouse Magazine
From Various, Coilhouse Magazine, Issues 1-5, (2005-2010)
   
(Click on image to enlarge) Link to original
Recently uploaded to the Internet Archive is the five-issue run of Coilhouse, a California ultra-hip print magazine. Coilhouse has apparently ceased publication. Why? Well, there's the general decline of print media and the absence of any current business plan for high-quality magazines. There's the reduction in browsing-type bookstores with large magazine racks -- I never heard of the magazine. And it is particularly sad to see the role staff health problems played in the magazine's collapse, such as publisher Nadya Lev's glaucoma. Also tragic: costume designer Tiffa Noava, who designed the outfit on the left and who created the "post-apocalyptic carnival nomad" look popular at Burning Man festivals, died from bad drugs in Bali.
In the middle image, editor Meredith Yayanos, traveling on a band bus through Oklahoma, wrote a meditation on the "The Tarnished Beauties of Blackwell, Oklahoma," writing "Her name was Lola Squires [in the left middle of the picture], and she was a student enrolled in Blackwell High, graduating class of 1916. That's all I know. Her gaze knocked me back several feet. Once I finally stop staring at her, I realized that there were countless other flint-eyed and bow-bedecked young beauties on the walls nearby." (And here I thought I was the only one who looked at pictures of long-dead women with -- well, call it admiration.)
Finally, on the far right, there is the work of Brisbane, Australia, photographer Katie O'Brien.
Coilhouse's motto was "Coilhouse is a love letter to alternative culture, written in an era when alternative culture no longer exists. Or DOES it? In any case, here at Coilhouse, we happily take cues from yesterday and tomorrow, from the mainstream and from the underground, to make our own way. We cover art, fashion, technology, music and film to convey the alternative culture that we are longing to live in, as opposed to the one that's being sold or handed down to us."
   
Truth to tell, some of the images are somewhat creepy to mainstream eyes, although always stylish and glamorous. Left, an artist who makes steampunk porcelain dolls -- with autopsy incisions on the chest. Center, another Novoa costume on an androgymous model-- including body piercings still dripping blood. And right, some sort of devil fetish figure; note the silver surgical instruments in her lap.

Spanish Antiquities
From Jose Dorregay, Museo espanol de antiguedades, 1873
 
(Click on image to enlarge) Link to original
Recently uploaded by the Getty Research Institute, a very valuable book of essays and illustrations on Spanish antiquities. Pre-Columbian navigation charts, ornate altarpieces, etc. I chose two images to restore:

• While a man sets fire to a stack of what appears to be wood and cloth, a knight and a young woman interact. Is the man pulling the woman out to the fire? Or is the woman pulling the man into the house? I can't read Spanish, so I can only guess. Looks like an Inquisition scene to me, reminiscent of Natalie Portman's entrapment in the movie Goya's Ghost.
• Two finely crafted household objects. My guess is they are mirror holders, but they could also hold spherical globes. One has the shape of a dragon, the other the shape of a unicorn. Be sure to view these at full size (547 x 827 pixels).

Dungeon and Dragon Fantasy Illustrations
From Various Artists, Dragon Magazine, Numbers 300-399
 
(Click on image to enlarge) Link to list of originals
Some 400 issues of the 80-s and 90's Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) publication called Dragon Magazine were recently uploaded to the Internet Archive Open Source library. Given my penchant for romantic old-school illustration, there's a lot of great work here, illustrating characters in these role-playing fantasy adventure games. I recently went through Numbers 300-399 of the Dragon collection. I found a candidate for leading contemporary fantasy illustrator: Chuck Lukacs. I only include two illustrations, because Lukacs is still alive and is selling reproductions of his work. Other fantasy illustrators are listed as award-winners in an annual competition. Someone needs to fill the void left by recently deceased sci-fi and fantasy illustrators like Kelly Freas and Frank Frazetta.

English Modernism before/during World War I
From Wyndham Lewis, ed., Blast No. 2, 1915

(Click on image to enlarge) Link to original.
In his magazine Blast, editor, writer and artist Wyndham Lewis experimented with typographic chaos and published modernist writers like T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound. He also illustrated the issues with work in a graphic style called Vorticism, an offshoot of Cubism. And in a world descending into the muddy poison-gas horrors of World War I he published high-brow artistic manifestos as if they were going to make a difference. The bombastic manifestos make only the barest linguistic sense; "We only want Tragedy if it can clench its side-muscles like hands on it's [sic] belly, and bring to the surface a laugh like a bomb," one pronounces. Editor Lewis would go off to World War I, serve with honor, and survive; but the oncoming war -- which destroyed so many European hopes -- was on everyone's mind. Here is an image by Vorticist Christopher Nevinson called "On the Way to the Trenches." Nevinson was later expelled (or quit) the Vorticist movement in a split over the influence of the Italian Futurist movement. But I like his strong, simple shapes. I spent a full day trying to find a way to turn this image into something else by adding layers, but the image is too strong to allow interference. In the center is the original woodcut image, somewhat enhanced; the border treatment is my own experimental manipulation.

19th Century "Castes" in India
From Daniel Poor, Seventy-two Specimens of Castes in India, 1837
     
(Click on image to enlarge) Link to original
Four images from a book of drawings executed by Daniel Poor, a Massachusetts-born Presbyterian minister in Madura, India. The book purports to show 72 "specimens" of different castes in India. I am no friendlier to the concept of castes than to the Nazi racial stereotypes in the previous entry. Both are used as mechanisms of social control and suppression. Women pay a heavy price, with caste-related rapes not uncommon; there are riots right now in India after a brutal gang rape. Anyway, I include these four representative images from old imperialism because they are picturesque and kind of sad, showing the variations in skin color, clothing, and decoration that divided people from each other.

Nazi Racial Stereotypes
From Philateles Kuhn and Heinrich Kranz, Von Deutschen Ahnen fuer Deutsche Enkel, 1933
 
(Click on image to enlarge) Link to original
Two images from a Nazi-era book of racial theory, illustrating two racial types. The young woman on the left is said to be the Nordic racial type; she doesn't seem to be blonde, but that might be a result of the original reproduction. The old man on the right is said to be the Dinaric (or Adriatic) racial type, which includes people from Serbia, Croatia and the Balkans, including the old Yugoslavia. The Nordic type was said to be a master race. The archaic anthropology behind these types is now universally rejected. I include these images because the manipulation is so obvious here. Compare a young woman (similar to the beauties depicted in pre-Raphaelite paintings) to an old man, whose face (like my own) shows the ravages of time. All but universally desired youth versus occasionally respected but never desirable old age. The Nazis used their cockeyed racial theories to justify their conquest of other nations and "inferior races." This is ugly stuff. Eighty years after Hitler, a lot of it is coming into the Public Domain. I enhanced, recolored, and framed the image. At first, I put this on Re-creations, my other Public Domain image page, where I put wild digital manipulations, but then I moved the image to this page of Restorations because, except for the added shade and framing, these are pretty accurate representations of the original images.

Gameplayers visualize medieval cultural moment
From TSR Inc., Dragon Magazine, 1999

(Click on image to enlarge) Link to original.
Dragon magazine was aimed at Dungeons and Dragons players two decades ago. This image (from March 1999) was captioned "Oral tradition becomes written chronicle when Anglo-Saxon Bards befriend literate Scholar Monks." The capitalization indicates that the terms referred to players in that highly imaginative game. I like the serious churchman, the shy balladeer, and the warm interior of this scene. (Unfortunately, I was too old for the height of the D&D craze.)

Seated Confucius
From Isidore-Stanislas Helman, AbreŽgeŽ historique des principaux traits de la vie de Confucius, ceŽle`bre philosophe chinois, 1880

(Click on image to enlarge) Link to original.
The Getty Research Institute has been publishing some great documents lately. Here's one from a collection of engravings depicting the life of the Chinese philosopher Confucius. I like the calm repose of this scene.

Covers from turn-of-century anarchist propaganda
From Jean Grave, Brochures de Jean Grave aux "Temps Nouveaux", 1898

"La Colonisation"	"Les Scientifiques"	"Ce que Nous Voulons"

First Tintin story
From Georges Remi, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, 1930
   
(Click on image to enlarge) Link to original.
Two panels from the first installment of the episodic European comic Tintin. Modern critics have said that author Remi was racist and colonialist and viewed monarchy as "the only legitimate form of authority." His opposition to socialism and communism is clear in these two panels from various points in the Land of the Soviets story. Remi departs from modern political correctness -- but Tintin has such rousing adventures in such beautifully realized places that -- who cares? Remi himself has said "I was fed the prejudices of the bourgeois society that surrounded me." Although Remi added color to much of his early black-and-white work, he never added color to this strip.

Typographic Exercise
From Unknown, Pult & Takt Stock (Music Manuscript List), 1930
     
(Click on image to enlarge) Link to original.
Left, the original cover. Middle, the cover with text blanked. Right, my attempt to duplicate the original cover with my own fonts, specifically Heather and Cooper Black Italic. What attracted me to this project (done during the latest Dexter and Homeland) was the subtle color combination of cardboard-brown and light green, and the simple design of five boxes (see rightmost image): two borders (right and left), and then three blocks in the middle, from top, two text blocks and a decorative motif block harmonized with border. The bottom design block has a small artist's signature, "Huter 24," which I didn't notice. It was quite a challenge to get the middle center text even on both sides, requiring adjusting all the controls in the Photoshop character style box.

Illustration for H.G. Wells Short Story
From Hugo Gernsback, Amazing Stories, 1927

(Click on image to enlarge) Link to original.
Publisher Hugo Gernsback is sometimes known as the father of science fiction. It turns out that Gernsback's early science fiction magazine Amazing Stories -- my father subscribed -- has gone out of copyright. The picture above accompanied an H.G. Wells story, A Story of the Stone Age, captioned "In another moment he was hanging to its back half buried in fur, with one fist clutching the hair under its jaw. The bear was too astonished at this fantastic attack to do more than cling passively. And then the axe, the first of all axes, rang on its skull." Ah, those wonderful times when mild-mannered clerks could travel back in time to defeat "passive" cave bears and win maidens. Right, John Carter? Plus space travel and bug-eyed green monsters! My father, if he were here, would argue that the science fiction of that era, corny as it may seem, was more grounded in science and history than the dark-age vampire and zombie yarns of today (exception: Battlestar Galactica).

Music cover sheet
From Harry Lincoln, Aurora: March two-step, 1906

(Click on image to enlarge) Link to original.
The Smithsonian just uploaded some sheet music from their collection. Sheet music has colorful, attention-seeking covers, battling for market share. Here's one showing, in the Smithsonian cataloger's words, "the goddess Aurora in a flowing robe holding a torch in one hand and a garland of flowers in the other. Sky, clouds, and sun in the background." The music was a two-step march for piano called "Aurora" by Harry Lincoln. I cropped out title and covered text with matching colors to make image re-usable.

Rare and Fancy Woods in Natural Colors
From Craftsman Wood Service Co., Hunt's catalog no. 14 revised for woodworkers, 1943
My father was a wood-shop teacher and had a beautiful book of wood samples, which always fascinated me. The grain and "figure" of the woods were so different. I was especially fascinated by Bird's Eye Maple (#8 in the second figure), which I believe was my father's favorite too. Over the years -- and moves -- the family misplaced the book, and I've always missed it. Anyway, here are 32 samples of high-quality artisan's woods, slightly enhanced. In honor of Charlie Moore, who taught thousands of tough Detroit high school kids how to build a birdhouse.
(Click on images to enlarge) Link to original.

1. Amaranth (Purpleheart), British Guiana; 2. Avodire, West Africa; 3. Benin (African Walnut), West Africa; 4. Rubinga (African Rosewood). West Africa; 5. Cherry, United States; 6. Cocobolo, Central America; 7. Black Ebony (Gaboon Ebony), Africa; 8. Macassar Ebony (Black & White Ebony), Dutch East Indies	1. Goncala Alves, South America; 2. Figured Red Gum, United States; 3. Holly, White, United States; 4. Kingwood (Violetwood), South America; 5. Koa, Hawaiian Islands; 6. Lacewood (Silky Oak), Australia; 7. Laurel, East India; 8. Maple, Bird's-eye, United States

1. Maple, Fiddle-back Figure, United States, British Guiana; 2. Maple, Curly, United States; 3. Narra, Phillipines; 4. Padouk, East India or Burma; 5. Peroba, Brazil; 6. Prima Vera (White Mah.), Central America; 7. Brazilian Rosewood, Brazil; 8. East India Rosewood, East India	1. Satinwood, East India; 2. Snakewood (Letterwood), Braz. & D. Guiana; 3. Sycamore, United States; 4. Tasmanian Oak, Tasmania; 5. Teak, Burma & Siam; 6. Tulip, Brazil; 7. Vermilion, Africa; 8. Zebra, Africa

Canadian Account of Personal Pilgrimage
From Damase Potvin, Sur la Grand'Route, 1920
Drawings from a book (in French) of the journal of a Quebec lawyer who went on a journey of self-discovery. I don't read French fluently, so details are vague. There is a tone of religious devotion and contemplation of man's mortality. A crucifixion scene is on the cover. I enjoyed the pen and ink illustrations by L. Roison. Here are six of the seven. It is possible to correct for the occasional brown cast, but I was tired and was haphazard in doing so.
(Click on images to enlarge) Link to original.

"Sur la Grand'Route"	"Le Bonhomme Thieren"	"Le Montreur d'Ours"
"Dans la Brume"	"La Courvee"	"La Vieux Cheval"

Dead languages live
From Johannes Friedrich, Extinct Languages, 1957
 
(Click on left image to enlarge) Link to original.
On the left, Babylonian cuneiform from around 2400 B.C., as "scratched into soft clay with a wooden stylus and then fired to make it durable." (It shames me that my own country waged war against Iraq -- which is now the name of the territory of old Babylon -- in a war based on false premises.) I like the shape of the cuneiform letters, the contrast between thick and thin, the way the stylus makes triangular shapes like the delta-wing jets of my youth. On the right, symbols from Easter Island in the South Pacific. By the time the wooden tablets containing the tablets were discovered on the remote island, around 1870, none of the surviving natives could read them, the text explains. The author calls it "an undeciphered script of our own era... There is very little reason for hoping that we will ever be able to reveal the meaning of these tablets of Easter Island." To me, the tragedy of Easter Island is a story of a negative feedback loop between religious fanaticism and resource depletion.

How to prevent the end of the world
From Alexander Bolonkin, Protection of the Earth from the Asteroid, 2012

(Click on image to enlarge) Link to original.
An illustration (melodramatically captioned New York 2012) from a Word document uploaded by Prof. Bolonkin, a board member of the International Space Agency. It describes a couple scenarios for deflecting a Near Earth Object (NEO) or wayward asteroid plummeting toward our planet: (1) "Detonating a nuclear explosion above the surface (or on the surface or beneath it) of a NEO", and (2) "Sending a simple spacecraft weighing less than one ton to impact against the [NEO]." Bolonkin said a trade-off study showed that the second strategy, called "kinetic impactor deflection" was more efficient. I'm glad somebody's thinking about this. Bolonkin is an interesting character. He was arrested by the KGB in 1972 for distributing works by dissident writers Andrei Sakharov and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and spent fifteen years in Siberian concentration camps. Since then he has worked with NASA and written about some visionary subjects. His command of written English is not great, but cut the guy some slack.

Lithographs of Artistocratic Footwear
From T.Watson Greig, Ladies' Old-fashioned Shoes, 1885
(Click on images to enlarge) Link to original.
I know that the inclusion of blatant shoe porn may make me a pariah among my serious-minded friends. Yesterday, Occupy; today, the footwear of the monarchic upper crust of centuries past. But this book caught my eye for its fine lithography and nice backgrounds to the featured shoes. An expensive book printed in Edinburgh, Scotland, by fine arts printer George Waterston, Greig explains that the purpose of the book was to preserve "what is fast crumbling into dust." The artist is not separately identified, so I can only assume it is Greig, although maybe Greig just hired a (highly skilled) "ghost"-artist .

"Large buckled shoe worn in the reign of Queen Anne... Owner unknown... The material is pink silk; the embroidery in silks and metallic threads is very rich..."	"Very old, but the date and name of its wearer can not be discovered... heel, instead of being covered with the same material as the show, is formed of dark red leather..."
"Nothing can be ascertained about Mrs. Brown, the owner of this magnificent show, except her name... It is made of cloth of gold... dates about the time of Queen Elizabeth"	"Worn by the Countess of Portsmouth with fancy dress... Pale silk striped with blue and richly embroidered in steel ... The form and style is apparently of the last century..."
"Miss Langley, to whom this shoe belonged, lived in the reign of Charles II... Made of pale silk, most beautifull embroidered, this shoe may be considered as a chef d'ouevre in shoe manufacture of the times"	"French footwear in book's appendix. Clockwise from right: Postillion's boot (Louis XV); Cauldron boot (Louis XIV); Boot of Henri Montmorenci; 1632, Fashionable Boot (Louis XIV); Soulier de Vilain (Louis XIV); Flemish shoe, 1530.""

Maybe my nephew's wife, a former fashion pro who likes shoes, will appreciate this.

Ornate Frames for Show-Biz Big-Wigs
From New York Clipper, Miss Clipper's anecdotes, personalities and comments concerning stage folks and sometimes others, 1904
     
(Click on images to enlarge) Link to original.
The early 20th century theatrical trade paper New York Clipper sometimes ran a front page feature that placed a simple headshot of a show business celebrity inside an elaborate art deco frame. I wanted to preserve some of those frames for future use. In time, the Clipper was absorbed into today's Variety.

Prophecies of 19th Century Catholic Mystic
From Marquise de la Franquerie, Prophecies of Marie Julie Jahenny: The Breton Stigmatist, 1977

"Marie Julie Jahenny kissing the relic of the Lance which pierced Jesus' heart"	"Miraculous Picture in Jahenny's House which Witnesses say Bled"	"Jahenny on her Deathbed"	"Marquis de la Franquerie"

(Click on images to enlarge) Link to original.
A pamphlet by French monarchist Franquerie, containing what he records as the divinely inspired prophecies of a Breton woman, Marie-Julie Jahenny, said to display the stigmata (wounds) of Christ from the age of 23 until she died at the age of 91. Although I was raised Roman Catholic, this particular set of miraculous prophecies seems transparently political and bogus. Consider Jahenny's ecstatic message from God in 1883, after the death of a nobleman whom Franquerie considered heir apparent to the French throne: ("NO MORE HOPE FOR THE WORLD! France not having MERITED the one who was to save her, God has taken him away from the earth. First punishment!"). The disappointed Royalist also reports that Jahenny "depicted a terribly exact portrait of the false savior DeGaulle, who was in fact the biggest malefactor in the history of France." The poor woman, bedridden for most of her life with bleeding wounds, cynically manipulated by a group of clerics and nobles for political purposes.

Franquerie was a piece of work. Another Franquerie publication is a privately-published rant about the Jewish-Masonic conspiracy, Communists, the Synagogue of Lucifer, etc. The long-lived papal politician appears in many weird theories, such as here and here,. Read them and you will learn that God told Franquerie to take Jahenny's prophecies and papers and hide them from the Germans until the 1970's and that the Second Coming of Christ happened in Paris in 1957. Much religious madness in these links, tread with care. But it's a hell of a story. For instance, in the picture at left, God told Jahenny that the relic contained an actual biological particle of Jesus' heart; and guess who owns that relic? Madame de la Franquerie.

1950's powder room fashion
From Robert Wood Plumbing Associates, The National line alterations, additions, now, 1951
 
(Click on images to enlarge) Link to original.
The catalog of Wood Plumbing of Indianapolis featured these two ladies in lounging robes to show off the company's National Line of bathroom fixtures. Two things caught my eye on these: (1) the stereotyped look of these two, similar to the women on the TV series Mad Men set in the 50's, and (2) the grating color scheme of orange with two shades of green. The brunette on the left seems pleased with the Natalene cast iron bathroom sink at $44.95 and the blonde on the right applying powder to her face seems mysterious about the vitreous china Nathelyn sink at $22.68. And the sinks -- oh, well, I forgot to include them.

Reissued Propaganda by American Jihadist/Martyr
From Samir Khan, Expectations Full, 2012
 
(Click on images to enlarge) Link to original.
This is from an illustrated essay by Samir Khan (pictured at right) about what Western Muslims should expect when they go to the Middle East to volunteer for Jihad, the Holy Struggle against the enemies of Islam.
The text in the left image may be too small to read. It says:

"I strongly recommend all the brothers and sisters coming from the West to consider attacking American in its own backyard. The effect is much greater, it always embarasses the enemy, and these type of individual decision-making attacks are nearly impossible for them to contain."

"If you're coming from the West, especially America, you might be asked by the leaders of the mujuahidin or those who know where you're from why you didn't partake in jihad inside your country. If you tell them, "to help the mujahidin," they might tell you that attacking the enemy in their own backyard is one of the best ways to help the jihad. They certainly will not force you to go back home, but they will leave that option open for you just in case you change your mind and decide to attack the enemy back home."

Khan was an American citizen, born in Saudi Arabia, but raised in New York and North Carolina. He was killed in a drone attack (along with American-born U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki). The victims are no angels -- they are the S.O.B.'s who issued death threats against eight cartoonists who pictured Mohammed and in the passage above Khan cheerleads terrorist attacks in America -- but the extrajudicial killing of American citizens by the U.S. military without due process raises profound constitutional issues.

The propaganda arm of Al Quaeda just reissued Khan's pamphlet. If you examine the issues of Khan's Al Quaeda magazine Inspire in that propaganda link, you will see he was a talented graphic designer. The reissued pamphlet now hails Khan and al-Awlaki as martyrs ("We ask Allah to accept them and make their work a benefit for the Muslims.") It also adds a glamorous photo of the nerdy Khan (he started as Internet Jihadist in -- where else? -- his mother's basement). In the photo, Khan is beaming in desert warrior garb. To ensure the document's spread, Al Quaeda uploaded it to internetarchive.org and asked readers to "Please Download it and re-upload." They also assigned the document the wholly misleading keyword/search term of "sexual pleasure."

Walt Kelly does Fairies, Felines, and Aging
From Dell Comics, Mother Goose 68, 1945
 
(Click on images to enlarge) Link to original.
Some of cartoonist Walt Kelly's early work appeared in a Mother Goose 10-cent comic book, which was just released to the Creative Commons by Dell Comics. Here, for example, is his treatment ("A blinding flash, a puff of smoke/ And upon the startled scene/ All dressed in white with crown of gold/ appeared the Fairy Queen!") of the Fairy character . Those tiny winged creatures are graceful and sexy -- and Kelly sure gets that right -- but check out the freckled, gamine personality of the Fairy in her close-up. And please don't forget to click on the image to enlarge it to maximum size (1261 x 934 pixels).
And then take a look at Kelly's treatment of the household cat!
And, finally, check out Kelly's blonde and embustled shepherdess, Little Bo-Peep, fulfilling an old man's fondest wish. Kelly, a master of the expressive ink line and a sardonic commentator on the American scene, went on to write the classic Pogo comic strip.

Illustration from Medieval Text
From Hildemar of Corbie, Commentary on the Rule of Benedict, ca. 900
 
(Click on images to enlarge) Link to original.
Benedict's rules for monastic communities were influential in the Catholic Church since they were first written fifteen hundred years ago. This illustration shows Benedict, with Jesus Christ behind, handing the rules to the church. A detail is on the left, the full illustration is on the right. The illustration comes from a ninth century Commentary on Benedict's Rules by Hildemar of Corbie, a monk. The illustration has the caption Examplar ad Dimidium, which my rusty Latin would translate as "An example to his lessers."

Detail from Cover of Agricultural Water Equipment Catalog
From Humphryes Manufacturing Co., Water, plenty of it for man & beast., 1920

(Click on image to enlarge) Link to original.
Nice drawing of a horse's head, a detail from a trade catalog of pumps used for water -- well water, muddy water, gritty water, whitewash -- in agricultural environments. Humphryes was based in Mansfield, Ohio. Below is the original cover image and Humphryes' point-of-sale display sign. That color combination -- black, white, orange -- was common at the time, rather rare today. My artist friends who examine the cover in maximum resolution (1083 x 1744 pixel) are invited to speculate about the medium. My guess is a watercolor wash over a soft pencil drawing -- but I have trouble seeing how you could apply the wash without smudging the pencil. (Click on images to enlarge)

Russian Symbolist Periodical
From Various, VESY, 1904-1908

(Click on image to enlarge) Link1, Link2 to originals.
I don't read Russian, so all I can offer are my personal choices from VESY, an interesting Russian magazine more than a century old. First, consider this collection of various caricatures and portraits. Some I recognize, some not. From top left, going counterclockwide: (1) Oscar Wilde, (2) Unknown, (3) Unknown, (4) Henrik Ibsen, (5) Friederich Neitzsche, (6) Unknown, (7) Unknown.

Two other artists I enjoyed in VESY: One uses very fine, circular squiggles to build up a pastoral image of a lady in a sundress and the other uses woodcuts to make "spot art" throughout the issues -- highlights at the end of an article or head of a section.
(Click on image to enlarge)

[Later:] Was not happy with quality of reproduction on "ball-point-pen" pieces above, so redid one. I changed my copying method, producing a much larger image. I also used a technique of black line over a fat gray line, that worked well, I think...

Picturesque English History & Landscapes
From F.A. Bruton, Lancashire, with Illustrations by Albert Woods, 1921
(Click on images to enlarge) Link to original.
An old book about Lancashire in the Northwest of England. The book was discarded [!] by the library there, but, happily, they scanned the book before tossing it in the scrap paper pile. The writing is proud, respectful regionalism, with a hint of boosterism and a firm grasp of the deep, sometimes ugly history of religious wars and class conflict of the past. Philly has a long history, but I'm not sure we can match the elegance and depth of Lancashire's historical record. I can find no record of watercolor artist Albert Woods, but he has my respect for his mastery of that most difficult medium.

"Lancaster Castle: The Gateway. The portion shown here may be dated to the beginning of the fifteenth century. This has been called the greatest of English gateways."	"Lytham on the Extreme Southern Shore of the Fyle. Unlike its neighbors, St. Anne's and Blackpool, with which it is connected by railway and tram, Lytham can lay claim to high antiquity. It is the Lydun of [the] Domesday Book."	"Liverpool: The Canning Dock. The dock was opened in 1839, though the dry dock from which it was formed dates back to 1753."

More Lancashire History
Ed. by W. Farrer and J. Brownbill, The Victoria History of the County of Lancaster, 1906
(Click on image to enlarge) Link to original.
From another book on Lancashire history, this one dedicated to Queen Victoria and produced by a well-funded Royal Commission founded in 1899 and still in business. It was tasked with producing "an encyclopaedic record of England's places and people from earliest times to the present day." From the Lancashire volume, here's a painting of the Mersey River (center) and a couple Anglo Saxon designs.

More Romantic 19th-century Painting
From W. Snel, John William Waterhouse Schilderijen (Paintings), 2012
(Click on image to enlarge) Link to original.
From a catalog to a Dutch exhibit of the paintings of John William Waterhouse, known as "the modern Pre-Raphaelite" because he painted in that style long after the Pre-Raphaelite movement died. These three paintings all illustrate the story of The Lady of Shalott, a Tennyson retelling of an Arthurian legend. The Lady leads a happy life on an island not far from Camelot, "There she weaves by night and day/ A magic web with colours gay," with images she sees magically in "a mirror clear/ That hangs before her all the year,/ [where] Shadows of the world appear." One day, she glimpses handsome Sir Lancelot passing (left picture) and falls in love. She becomes dissatisfied with her weaving of pictures from the magic mirror (center picture). "'I am half-sick of shadows,' said/ The Lady of Shalott." Finally, lovesick, she sets off in a boat to drift to Camelot (right picture) -- and her death: "For ere she reach'd upon the tide/ The first house by the water-side,/ Singing in her song she died,/ The Lady of Shalott." Technical note: I am surprised at how dark Waterhouse's paintings are; I wonder if they are as dark on your computer....

Images from Leftist "Anti-Art" Collective
From Humal Collective, R.o.d.-H.c, 2011

(Click on image to enlarge) Link to original.
A confusing entry in the public domain, uploaded by someone associated with Rat or Dog, a Grateful Dead spin-off band, but consisting of a catalog of art work by a leftist collective called Humal Collective (sometimes known as Humal/Animan Collective) that seems vaguely connected with Italy and animal rights. Consider some keywords listed for this entry: "aRTCatalog; antimusic; nofi; ratordog; crumbling core; SPLIT Primitivism; bubotu cotumbo; humal collective; animan collective; (?)MOD; antiart; The Crumbling AntiMusic; visual nature." They may be anti-art, but they do good art work, and have mastered many technical aspects of fine art book production, such as the use of duotones to cut printing costs. I lead off with an oversized image captioned "Beautiful Maya I Nesh Van Bearmeer Will Feed You," capturing the special love on the left for the post-feminist women who still cook -- because they enjoy it and, well, someone has to. Note the woman in the picture is actually not holding a cooking utensil but an artist's palette.
Here's three more of various styles:

"The Passive Traveler"	"O?ba3"	""Cosmic Bride said: All the wounds will open at once -- big and small, old and future -- then she left in tears."

Illustrations to Indian Folk Tales
From Lal Behari Dey, Folk Tales of Bengal, 1912
(Click on image to enlarge) Link to original.
Lavish illustrations to Bengal folk tales collected in 1912 by Lal Behari Dey, an Indian journalist who converted to Christianity. The artist was Warwick Goble, the romantic painter who illustrated another book of Indian myths described previously in the Public Domain Free-for-All. Some "post-colonial" scholars would criticize Goble's work as Orientalism, with its overtones of exotic glamour and sensuous female passivity in a far-off land. Personally, I like the soft-core childlike charm of Goble's illustrations, which remind me of some of the favorite books of my youth and (perhaps for that reason) seem innocent, idealised, dreamlike.

"She took up the jewel in her hand, left the palace, and successfully reached the upper world."	"What princess only puts one ruby in her hair?"	"When she got out of the water, what a change was seen in her!"

"He saw a beautiful woman coming out of the palace."	"The Girl of the Wall -- Almirah"	"Hundreds of peacocks of gorgeous plumes came to the embankments to eat the khai"

"A monstrous bird comes out apparently from the palace."	"Coming up to the surface, they climbed into the boat."	"Thus the princess was deserted."

"She rushed out of the palace ... and came to the upper world."	"Instead of sweetmeats, about a score of demons...."	"You would adorn the palace of the mightiest sovereign."

Pictures from Celtic Mythology
From Charles Squire, Celtic Myth & Legend Poetry & Romance, 1913
(Click on image to enlarge) Link to original.

Ossian and Niamh of the Golden Hair	Title Page Design	Cuchalainn Meets the Morrigu

Sentimental illustrations from mythology, by artist J.H.F. Bacon. Even though I'm of Celtic origin myself, I know next to nothing about these myths. Bacon is not my favorite old-time illustrator, I prefer Goble and Parrish.

Ugly Room from 1923 Italian Wallpaper Catalog
From Tekko e Salubra, Wallpaper Catalog Approx. 1923

(Click on image to enlarge) Link to original.
Normally I like old-time decorating trade catalogs, but a sample room from this Milanese wallpaper company strikes me as possibly the ugliest room I've ever seen. Makes you understand where Mussolini and Berlusconi come from. Perhaps some of my reaction comes from the orange trim around the windows, a bright orange that almost makes me physically ill, particularly near its color complement purple. Anyway, here's a couple things I like from that catalog: (1) a cartoon showing happy paperhangers cavorting and (2) an over-the-top wallpaper design.
 

Illustrations to Arabian Nights
Edited by Kate Wiggins & Nora Smith, The Arabian Nights: Their Best Known Tales, 1909
(Click on image to enlarge) Link to original.
Nine images by artist Maxfield Parrish, a Philly native who defined a kind of dreamy romantic illustration. His figures, male and female, are sexually ambiguous — he used himself as a model for many of them. I was excited when I saw Parrish, but actually I don't think this is his best work, it's relatively early in his career.

"When he came to this part of the narrative, the young king could not restrain his tears"	"And she proceeded to burn perfume and repeat spells until the sea foamed and was agitated"	"At the same time the earth, trembling, opened just before the magician and uncovered a stone, laid horizontally, with a brass ring fixed into the middle."
"At the approach of evening, I opened the first closet and. entering it, found a mansion like paradise."	"And when they had ascended that mountain they saw a city than which eyes had not beheld any greater."	"Cassim ... was so alarmed at the danger he was in that the more he endeavored to remember the word Sesame the more his memory was confounded."
"As it drew near we saw ten or twelve armed pirates appear on the deck."	"The spot where she left me was encompassed on all sides by mountains that seemed to reach above the clouds. and so steep that there was no possibility of getting out of the valley. "	"Having finished his repast, he returned to his porch, where he lay and fell asleep, snoring louder than thunder."

Sita Finds Rama Among the Lotus Blossoms
From Donald Mackenzie, Indian Myth and Legend, 1917

(Click on image to enlarge) Link to original.
Frontispiece by artist Warwick Goble to a 1917 English compilation of Indian and Brahmin myths. Sadly, I know only the barest outline of the story. Rama is an "avatar of the god Vishnu," according to Wikipedia. Rama and Sita were husband and wife, until Sita -- much like Helen of Troy -- was kidnapped by a rival, leading to a great war.
At first, I could only find a black-and-white scan of the file, so I attempted to colorize it. My first colorizing attempt is below:

I blush. Instructive -- and humbling -- for me to compare the artist's colors with my colors. My first attempt was way too green -- because I reasoned like a first-grader: plants are green. Anyway, here's some other illustrations from the color volume. Goble apparently read Vedic scriptures with an eye to the "good parts."

"Shantanu meets the Goddess Ganga"	"The Ordeal of Queen Draupadi"	"Arjuna & the River Nymph."
"Damayanti and the Swan"	Damayanti Choosing A Husband"	"Rama Spurns the Demon Lover"

Fireless Fireworks
From General Electric, Commercial Uses for Searchlights, 1919

(Click on image to enlarge) Link to original.
Picture from a 1919 brochure for GE's line of searchlights, showing a spectacular nighttime display at the Panama Pacific Exposition of 1915. The visual effects were produced by smoke, steam, and explosive bombs lit by large GE searchlights. "The color effects are produced by screens placed in front of the searchlights," the brochure explains. The searchlights were manufactured at GE's factory in Schenectady, New York. If you click on the photo to enlarge the image, you can examine the yachts of the time in the foreground, with white hulls, masts, and mahogany trim. GE's photograph reminds me of J.M.W. Turner's "Nocturne in Black and Gold," an 1877 painting of fireworks

Wartime Spool Toy
From U.S. Children's Bureau, Toys in Wartime: Suggestions to Parents on Making Toys in Wartime, 1942

(Click on image to enlarge) Link to original.
Another WWII home front image, a doll made from discarded wooden spools. Other items in the typewritten manuscript include painted wooden clothespins, gourd rattles, empty cardboard and wooden boxes, blocks from scrap wood, rag dolls, etc. Want a choo-choo pull toy? Take some small 1"-thick board, plane and sandpaper them, and drill holes for string. Want to play dress-up? Make decorative necklaces by stringing together elbow macaroni, sea shells, popcorn, and home-made beads (made with flour and salt). "The war," the brochure explains, "takes away toys made of rubber and steel and plastics, toys made by machines and men needed for making urgent war supplies. The war sometimes means moving families into cramped quarters that make adequate play space hard to find. The war takes away fathers and makes mothers find extra work outside the home. In time of war it takes thought and careful planing by parents to see that children's needs are met as well as conditions will allow." My mother always said that her highly-organized personal style developed living in a tiny trailer with a family of three -- while pregnant with a fourth (me).

Pakistani Magazine Illustrations
From Jasoosi Publications, Pakeezah Digest & Suspense Digest, various issues

(Click on image to enlarge) Link to original.
Uploaded to Internet Archive as "open source," these illustrations are from popular family magazines published in Pakistan. Pen-and-ink illustrations of dark-eyed Pakistani beauties contrast sharply with news reports of honor killings and the determination of one political group in Pakistan to stop female "Westernized" education. These pictures all seem to portray women in peril. The girl on the left is threatened by a mob, the woman in the center seems constrained, and the woman on the right faces a sword with a smoldering look. Pakistan has a violent history; one illustration from these magazines expresses the pervasive violence, showing a giant nameless knight on horseback trampling everybody:

Pakistan was where Osama Bin Laden was hiding while the idiot President Bush showered military aid on a Pakistani strongman. Politics aside, however, I am fond of the graphic style of the magazine's illustrators, reminiscent of the old Prince Valiant series of my childhood.

World War II Home Front Fashion
From The Spool Cotton Company, Make and Mend for Victory, 1942

Click on image to enlarge) Link to original.
Two designs from a book by a sewing supply company that tells wartime homemakers how to preserve and extend clothing. For instance, how to remake men's suits into jacket and skirt ensembles and how to spruce up old outfits with simple accessories such as these fancy collars. In my postwar childhood, the sweater and collar fashion was still around on the older girls. Perhaps they learned it from their mothers. Left is a "Lacy Crocheted Brimmed Sailor and Crochet Brimmed Collar" and right is a "V-Necked Collar with Crocheted Medallion Trim." The book assumes extensive knowledge of sewing techniques, especially mending and repair techniques. Sadly, I suspect this knowledge is mainly lost today, presumably outsourced to automation and low-wage workers overseas. Instead of darning stocks, I buy six for $3 at Wal-Mart. Cheap — but at what cost?

[Later]: A similar 1943 Department of Agriculture pamphlet (with patterns) about how to make women's and children's outfits from men's suits.

Revised FORMAT here

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Lady Descending A Staircase (Click on image to enlarge)
From A.S. Boyle & Co., Beautiful floors woodwork and furniture : their finish and care., Undated (approx. 1925)
Link
"If your [wooden floors] are finished beautifully, the whole interior of your home will convey an impression of beauty, richness, and refinement," says this manual for English floor wax. I like the flow of the Flapper's walk and the drape of her hip sash. And is that hairdo a bob? Notice too the border shape that contains the illustration. Image is more restoration than re-creation. Boyle's office was in Cincinnatti, with an office in Toronto.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Turkish Knight with Woman (Click on image to enlarge)
From Gamal Badaway, Nazrat Fe Tarekh Mesr
Link
A more modern interpretation of the armed horseman of the Middle East. Lady doesn't look unhappy, but who knows, since I can’t read a word of original.

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Medieval Arab Warrior (Click on image to enlarge)
From Books4all.net, Albondoqdari
Link
Having grown up with romantic images of European knights, thought I'd take a look at a romantic image of an Arabic knight. Handsome bearing, round shield, gaudy colors. Can’t read a word of original.

Friday, October 26, 2012

Gettin' Yours? (Click on image to enlarge)
Source: not recorded; an old type catalog, I believe.
In the style of those yellow Monopoly Chance cards and 1930 newspaper ads. Dude is wearing spats! And hand lettering in 1938 Speedball and 1957 Speedball manner.

Friday, October 19, 2012

Bronze Victory Figure, Calcutta (Click on image to enlarge)
H.H. Martyn & Co., Specialist Craftsmen in Memorial and Architectural Works, 1867
Link
Statue from catalog of memorial company, shows part of war memorial statue in Calcutta. Headline is playful. Here is a version without headline.

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

The Graces (Click on image to enlarge)
from Harriet Foreman, Illustrated Portfolio of Artistic Dancing, 1894, Link
A chaste, lovely pose from an old dance souvenir program. Foreman, a Portland, Oregon, dance instructor in the Neo-Grecian tradition of Isadora Duncan — she later collaborated with composer Henry Cowell in a piece titled Dance of the Priestess: The Religion of the Body — wrote that this image “is an argument without words — undisputably an example of ease and grace showing such a pose as insures perfect rest, and curved lines that only come with development of body muscles. The graceful attitudes into which the human form may be moulded are as varied as the mind, from impulse, is capable of conjuring. The Greeks ‘who worshipped the body with loving care,’ practiced calisthenics (a Greek word meaning beauty and strength) to give flexibility to the body and limbs, and in their statuary have left to us perfect examples [of] action[s that] call into use all the muscle servants of the will.”
This is a simple restoration. I cleaned up, added color, and performed a number of almost invisible digital manipulations which can only be seen in full enlargement.