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EssaysArt & Illustrations
![Primary Sources: A Natural History of the Artist’s Palette](https://the-public-domain-review.imgix.net/essays/primary-sources/Virgin_Mary_-_Ceiling_-_Capella_degli_Scrovegni_-_Padua_2016-edit-2.jpg?w=600&h=1200)
Primary Sources: A Natural History of the Artist’s Palette
For all its transcendental appeals, art has always been inextricably grounded in the material realities of its production, an entwinement most evident in the intriguing history of artists' colours. Focusing in on painting's primary trio of red, yellow, and blue, Philip Ball explores the science and stories behind the pigments, from the red ochre of Lascaux to Yves Klein's blue. more
![Comic Gold: The Easterner Goes West in Three Early American Comics](https://the-public-domain-review.imgix.net/essays/comic-gold-the-easterner-goes-west-in-three-early-american-comics/comic-gold-thumb.jpg?w=600&h=1200)
Comic Gold: The Easterner Goes West in Three Early American Comics
The California Gold Rush transformed the landscape and population of the United States. It also introduced a new figure into American life and the American imagination — the effete Eastern urbanite who travels to the Wild West in quest of his fortune. Alex Andriesse examines how this figure fares in three mid-nineteenth-century comic books. more
![Emma Willard’s Maps of Time](https://the-public-domain-review.imgix.net/essays/emma-willard-maps-of-time/13233002-edit-small-2-thumb.jpg?w=600&h=1200)
In the 21st-century, infographics are everywhere. In the classroom, in the newspaper, in government reports, these concise visual representations of complicated information have changed the way we imagine our world. Susan Schulten explores the pioneering work of Emma Willard (1787–1870), a leading feminist educator whose innovative maps of time laid the groundwork for the charts and graphics of today. more
![Of Pears and Kings](https://the-public-domain-review.imgix.net/essays/of-pears-and-kings/pear-king-zoom.jpg?w=600&h=1200)
Images have long provided a means of protesting political regimes bent on censoring language. In the 1830s a band of French caricaturists, led by Charles Philipon, weaponized the innocent image of a pear to criticize the corrupt and repressive policies of King Louis-Philippe. Patricia Mainardi investigates the history of this early 19th-century meme. more
![Woodblocks in Wonderland: The Japanese Fairy Tale Series](https://the-public-domain-review.imgix.net/essays/woodblocks-in-wonderland-the-japanese-fairy-tale-series/japanesefairytale-thumb.jpg?w=600&h=1200)
Woodblocks in Wonderland: The Japanese Fairy Tale Series
From gift-bestowing sparrows and peach-born heroes to goblin spiders and dancing phantom cats — in a series of beautifully illustrated books, the majority printed on an unusual cloth-like crepe paper, the publisher Takejiro Hasegawa introduced Japanese folk tales to the West. Christopher DeCou on how a pioneering cross-cultural endeavour gave rise to a magnificent chapter in the history of children's publishing. more
![Music of the Squares: David Ramsay Hay and the Reinvention of Pythagorean Aesthetics](https://the-public-domain-review.imgix.net/essays/music-of-the-squares-david-ramsay-hay-and-the-reinvention-of-pythagorean-aesthetics/47067296924_ec650f9392_c.jpg?w=600&h=1200)
Music of the Squares: David Ramsay Hay and the Reinvention of Pythagorean Aesthetics
Understanding the same laws to apply to both visual and aural beauty, David Ramsay Hay thought it possible not only to analyse such visual wonders as the Parthenon in terms of music theory, but also to identify their corresponding musical harmonies and melodies. Carmel Raz on the Scottish artist’s original, idiosyncratic, and occasionally bewildering aesthetics. more
![The Khan’s Drinking Fountain](https://the-public-domain-review.imgix.net/essays/the-khans-drinking-fountain/Karakorum-thumb.png?w=600&h=1200)
Of all the things described in William of Rubruck's account of his travels through 13th-century Asia, perhaps none is so striking as the remarkably ornate fountain he encountered in the Mongol capital which — complete with silver fruit and an angelic automaton — flowed with various alcoholic drinks for the grandson of Genghis Khan and guests. Devon Field explores how this Silver Tree of Karakorum became a potent symbol, not only of the Mongol Empire's imperial might, but also its downfall. more
![Audubon’s Haiti](https://the-public-domain-review.imgix.net/essays/audubons-haiti/audubon-thumb-pink.jpg?w=600&h=1200)
An entrepreneur, hunter, woodsman, scientist, and artist — John James Audubon, famous for his epic The Birds of America, is a figure intimately associated with a certain idea of what it means to be American. And like many of the country's icons, he was also an immigrant. Christoph Irmscher reflects on Audubon's complex relationship to his Haitian roots. more
![Progress in Play: Board Games and the Meaning of History](https://the-public-domain-review.imgix.net/essays/progress-in-play-board-games-and-the-meaning-of-history/chronologicalstar-zoom-1.jpg?w=600&h=1200)
Progress in Play: Board Games and the Meaning of History
Players moving pieces along a track to be first to reach a goal was the archetypal board game format of the 18th and 19th centuries. Alex Andriesse looks at one popular incarnation in which these pieces progress chronologically through history itself, usually with some not-so-subtle ideological, moral, or national ideal as the object of the game. more
![Filling in the Blanks: A Prehistory of the Adult Coloring Craze](https://the-public-domain-review.imgix.net/essays/filling-in-the-blanks-a-prehistory-of-the-adult-coloring-craze/colouring-in-thumb.jpg?w=600&h=1200)
Filling in the Blanks: A Prehistory of the Adult Coloring Craze
Its dizzy heights may have passed, but the fad for adult coloring books is far from over. Many trace the origins of such publications to a wave of satirical colouring books published in the 1960s, but as Melissa N. Morris and Zach Carmichael explore, the existence of such books, and the urge to colour the printed image, goes back centuries. more
![“O Uommibatto”: How the Pre-Raphaelites Became Obsessed with the Wombat](https://the-public-domain-review.imgix.net/essays/o-uommibatto-how-the-pre-raphaelites-became-obsessed-with-the-wombat/burne-jones-wombat.jpg?w=600&h=1200)
“O Uommibatto”: How the Pre-Raphaelites Became Obsessed with the Wombat
Angus Trumble on Dante Gabriel Rossetti and company's curious but longstanding fixation with the furry oddity that is the wombat — that "most beautiful of God's creatures" which found its way into their poems, their art, and even, for a brief while, their homes. more
![Elephants, Horses, and the Proportions of Paradise](https://the-public-domain-review.imgix.net/essays/elephants-horses-and-the-proportions-of-paradise/paradise-geometry-thumb-1.jpeg?w=600&h=1200)
Elephants, Horses, and the Proportions of Paradise
Does each species have an optimal form? An ideal beauty that existed prior to the Fall? These were questions that concerned both artists and breeders alike in the 17th century. Dániel Margócsy on the search for a menagerie of perfect prelapsarian geometry. more
![Grandville, Visions, and Dreams](https://the-public-domain-review.imgix.net/essays/grandville-visions-and-dreams/44013005175_906fc892e1_c.jpg?w=600&h=1200)
Grandville, Visions, and Dreams
With its dreamlike inversions and kaleidoscopic cast of anthropomorphic objects, animals, and plants, the world of French artist J. J. Grandville is at once both delightful and disquieting. Patricia Mainardi explores the unique work of this 19th-century illustrator now recognised as a major precursor and inspiration to the Surrealist movement. more
![Bringing the Ocean Home](https://the-public-domain-review.imgix.net/essays/bringing-the-ocean-home/aquariumunveilin00goss_0006-1.jpg?w=600&h=1200)
Bernd Brunner on the English naturalist Philip Henry Gosse and how his 1854 book The Aquarium, complete with spectacular illustrations and a dizzy dose of religious zeal, sparked a craze for the "ocean garden" that gripped Victorian Britain. more
![Early Modern Memes: The Reuse and Recycling of Woodcuts in 17th-Century English Popular Print](https://the-public-domain-review.imgix.net/essays/early-modern-memes-the-reuse-and-recycling-of-woodcuts-in-17th-century-english-popular-print/euing_1_342_2448x2448.jpg?w=600&h=1200)
Early Modern Memes: The Reuse and Recycling of Woodcuts in 17th-Century English Popular Print
Expensive and laborious to produce, a single woodcut could be recycled to illustrate scores of different ballads, each new home imbuing the same image with often wildly diverse meanings. Katie Sisneros explores this interplay of repetition, context, and meaning, and how in it can be seen a parallel to meme culture of today. more
![Exquisite Rot: Spalted Wood and the Lost Art of Intarsia](https://the-public-domain-review.imgix.net/essays/exquisite-rot-spalted-wood-and-the-lost-art-of-intarsia/DT319532-copy.jpg?w=600&h=1200)
Exquisite Rot: Spalted Wood and the Lost Art of Intarsia
The technique of intarsia — the fitting together of pieces of intricately cut wood to make often complex images — has produced some of the most awe-inspiring pieces of Renaissance craftsmanship. Daniel Elkind explores the history of this masterful art, and how an added dash of colour arose from a most unlikely source: lumber ridden with fungus. more
![Iconology of a Cardinal: Was Wolsey Really so Large?](https://the-public-domain-review.imgix.net/essays/iconology-of-a-cardinal-was-wolsey-really-so-large/wolsey_750.jpg?w=600&h=1200)
Iconology of a Cardinal: Was Wolsey Really so Large?
Characterised as manipulative, power-hungry, and even an alter rex, Henry VIII's right-hand man Cardinal Thomas Wolsey has been typically depicted with a body mass to rival his political weight. Katherine Harvey asks if he was really the glutton of popular legend, and what such an image reveals about the link between the body, reputation, and power in Tudor England. more
![Fallen Angels: Birds of Paradise in Early Modern Europe](https://the-public-domain-review.imgix.net/essays/fallen-angels-birds-of-paradise-in-early-modern-europe/41231653101_a280a87108_c.jpg?w=600&h=1200)
Fallen Angels: Birds of Paradise in Early Modern Europe
When birds of paradise first arrived to Europe, as dried specimens with legs and wings removed, they were seen in almost mythical terms — as angelic beings forever airborne, nourished by dew and the "nectar" of sunlight. Natalie Lawrence looks at how European naturalists of the 16th and 17th centuries attempted to make sense of these entirely novel and exotic creatures from the East. more
![Pens and Needles: Reviving Book-Embroidery in Victorian England](https://the-public-domain-review.imgix.net/essays/pens-and-needles-reviving-book-embroidery-in-victorian-england/embroidery-featured.jpg?w=600&h=1200)
Pens and Needles: Reviving Book-Embroidery in Victorian England
Fashionable in the 16th and 17th century, the art of embroidering unique covers for books saw a comeback in late 19th-century England, from the middle-class drawing room to the Arts and Crafts movement. Jessica Roberson explores the bibliomania, patriotism, and issues around gender so central to the revival. more
![Illustrating Carnival: Remembering the Overlooked Artists Behind Early Mardi Gras](https://the-public-domain-review.imgix.net/essays/illustrating-carnival-remembering-the-overlooked-artists-behind-early-mardi-gras/download-5.png?w=600&h=1200)
Illustrating Carnival: Remembering the Overlooked Artists Behind Early Mardi Gras
For more than 150 years the city of New Orleans has been known for the theatricality and extravagance of its Mardi Gras celebrations. Allison C. Meier looks at the wonderfully ornate float and costume designs from Carnival's "Golden Age" and the group of New Orleans artists who created them. more
![The Dreams of an Inventor in 1420](https://the-public-domain-review.imgix.net/essays/the-dreams-of-an-inventor-in-1420/devil-fontana-copy.jpg?w=600&h=1200)
The Dreams of an Inventor in 1420
Bennett Gilbert peruses the sketchbook of 15th-century engineer Johannes de Fontana, a catalogue of designs for a variety of fantastic and often impossible inventions, including fire-breathing automatons, pulley-powered angels, and the earliest surviving drawing of a magic lantern device. more
![Pods, Pots, and Potions: Putting Cacao to Paper in Early Modern Europe](https://the-public-domain-review.imgix.net/essays/pods-pots-and-potions-putting-cacao-to-paper-in-early-modern-europe/cacao-red-1000px.jpeg?w=600&h=1200)
Pods, Pots, and Potions: Putting Cacao to Paper in Early Modern Europe
Christine Jones explores the different ways the cacao tree has been depicted through history — from 16th-century codices to 18th-century botanicals — and what this changing iconography reveals about cacao's journey into European culture. more
![Brief Encounters with Jean-Frédéric Maximilien de Waldeck](https://the-public-domain-review.imgix.net/essays/brief-encounters-with-jean-frederic-maximilien-de-waldeck/waldeck-thumb.jpg?w=600&h=1200)
Brief Encounters with Jean-Frédéric Maximilien de Waldeck
Not a lot concerning the artist, erotic publisher, explorer, and general enigma Count de Waldeck can be taken at face value, and this certainly includes his fanciful representations of ancient Mesoamerican culture which — despite the exquisite brilliance of their execution — run wild with anatopistic elephants and suspicious architecture. Rhys Griffiths looks at the life and work of one of the 19th century's most mysterious and eccentric figures. more
![Flash Mob: Revolution, Lightning, and the People’s Will](https://the-public-domain-review.imgix.net/essays/flash-mob-revolution-lightning-and-the-people-s-will/lightning-thumb.jpg?w=600&h=1200)
Flash Mob: Revolution, Lightning, and the People’s Will
Kevin Duong explores how leading French revolutionaries, in need of an image to represent the all important "will of the people", turned to the thunderbolt — a natural symbol of power and illumination that also signalled the scientific ideals so key to their project. more