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Postmortem sleeping beauties
Through the end of May, UMBC’s Albin O Kuhn gallery is hosting a large exhibition of postmortem daguerreotypes, death masks, coffin plates, etc. from the collection of Dr. Stanley Burns. Medical...
View ArticleSavage beauty: Alexander McQueen’s anatomical inspirations
Alienation often accounts for a macabre sense of the marvellous. At the entrance to “Savage Beauty,” there is an evening gown conjured entirely from razor-clam shells. Antelope horns sprout from the...
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Fold-out vintage medical books
Animated Anatomies, a new show at the Perkins Library at Duke University, explores the tradition of fold-out or pop-up paper anatomical diagrams: Animated Anatomies explores the visually stunning and...
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If the Founding Fathers wanted to visit Body Worlds. . .
. . . they could have. Or pretty darn close, at least – they just needed to visit one of the many European cabinets of anatomical curiosities, to see the work of anatomists like Honore Fragonard....
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Quote of the Day
The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it can no longer wonder, no...
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Randy Hage’s Manhattan Wonder Cabinet
Nick’s Luncheonette Randy Hage Via the eye-candy blog How to Be a Retronaut (thanks Miles for first sending me a link there), the painstakingly accurate miniature Manhattan streetscapes of LA artist...
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Flipping through the uncanniest of books
This little video from Abebooks is the closest I’ve ever gotten to flipping through a copy of the Codex Seraphinianus. What a truly weird book. I particularly love it when the staid narrator reveals...
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Perry’s Arcana
From 1810-11, architect and amateur naturalist George Perry published The Arcana, a lavishly illustrated, serial natural history magazine. Although Perry intended for the serial issues to be assembled...
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Miniature Fantasies: Paolo Ventura
L’Automaton #06, 2010 Paolo Ventura (zoom view available here) Artist-photographer Paolo Ventura constructs and photographs miniature, dreamlike scenes. His Winter Stories represent the reminisces of...
View ArticlePoem of the Week: Debora Greger
Under glass, a bare forest of pins held down an army of insects in ragged rows. . . –”The Expression of Emotion in Man and Insects,” by Debora Greger (read the full poem at the Atlantic)
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