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Friday, December 25, 2015

Super disturbing imagery I found HERE

Thursday, December 24, 2015

Female War Correspondent Dickey Chapelle



Dickey Chapelle receiving last rites after being hit by shrapnel.
Image by Henri Huet.

According to this story, her last words were "I guess it was bound to happen."

More on her HERE.

Also see previous posts on LEE MILLER.

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Sunday, December 13, 2015

Thursday, December 10, 2015

Thursday, December 3, 2015


People passing by or entering Ørestad High School will get a real surprise: a giant breast with milk progressively flowing out of the nipple is hung in the entrance hall. This immense (the balloon is 9 meters of diameter) and fascinating video-installation, called Venus of Willendorf, is the last creation of the Danish-Argentinean couple Venus of Willendorf, which is at once entertaining and deeply meaningful.

From the website of Hilden Diaz 




Virgin of Nuremberg

The torture device commonly known as the Iron Maiden was also called the Virgin of Nuremberg.


But was it really used in the middle ages?
Here's a whole big discussion about it.
And another, more concise one.

It may just be a modern concept, like the chastity belt.

But then there's this crazy Italian horror movie:


Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Frankenstein and its Real World Influences

See this fascinating post at the PUBLIC DOMAIN REVIEW

And if this gets you interested in reanimating the dead or nearly dead, check out this tobacco enema kit at Atlas Obscura:

[THIS IS LITERALLY AN ARTICLE ON BLOWING SMOKE UP YOUR ASS]



Is she really dead?



Monday, November 30, 2015

The Art of Nicola Samorí

Nicola Samorí's official site is HERE. All the pictures are from there.

Installation view of sculpture in an anatomy theater







Monday, November 23, 2015

Pangolin-Scale Shirt

Way back when, I had a post about beetle wings being used as sequins in a historical dress.
Here, pangolin scales were used as armor on a coat for George III

Here is evidence of an antique precedent depicted on Trajan's Column

Oh, and here's a pangolin for reference:


{Yes, they're cute. Don't make armor out of them!}



Friday, November 20, 2015

Turning Urine Into Whiskey

Hey, it wasn't my idea, it was THIS GUY'S.

Yeah, I don't know what to do with that information either.

R.I.P. Coal Mine Canary


From HERE

Secret Materials

Recently, the New York Times had a piece on terrorists trying to find something called red mercury.


‘In previous generations,
old women wore it in a
necklace to keep the devil’s
eye away,’ one smuggler said.


And in Game of Thrones, we see wildfire, a substance based on Greek fire, a legendary Byzantine weapon.



‘Piss on wildfire and your cock burns off


All of this is akin to aurum potabile--the never-found philosopher's stone.



Thursday, November 19, 2015

Memento Mori rings

Ring with baby on one side and skeleton on the other, German, 1631, Cloisters, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Personal Photo


Wednesday, November 18, 2015

later Tödlein

Here's a later example from the Tödlein tradition in wax:

From HERE

Creepy Scottish Coffins


"They were arranged under slates on three tiers, two tiers of eight and one solitary coffin on the top. Each coffin, only 95mm in length, contained a little wooden figure, expertly carved with painted black boots and custom made clothes.
 "No-one knows what they were, why they were buried or who buried them but people have been trying to resolve the mystery ever since. At the time of their discovery, The Scotsman suggested they were used by witches casting death spells on specific individuals. Another theory is that they were kept by sailors to protect against death.
 "They may represent a mock burial, possibly for the 17 known victims of Burke and Hare. Working in Edinburgh, they sold the bodies of people they had murdered for dissection in the city's anatomy classes.
 "This horrified many Scots, who feared that a dissected body would not rise to life at the last judgement. William Burke was caught and executed for his crimes in 1829. Ironically his body was legally given to an anatomy class for dissection."
--from HERE

Pseudo-pornographic Political Cartoons


And more to come...

A Selection of German Memento Mori [Tödlein]

German, 1520s, Walters Art Museum


Das Tödlein aus der Sammlung Ludwig, Foto: Dennis Zetlitz von DZ-IMAGERY
Posted by LUDWIGGALERIE on Wednesday, February 1, 2012


Museum Schnutgen, Cologne

German, 1520, Schloss Ambras







Yoshitoshi Kanemaki





More HERE




Tuesday, November 17, 2015

A Carcass

My love, do you recall the object which we saw,
That fair, sweet, summer morn!
At a turn in the path a foul carcass
On a gravel strewn bed,
Its legs raised in the air, like a lustful woman,
Burning and dripping with poisons,
Displayed in a shameless, nonchalant way
Its belly, swollen with gases.
The sun shone down upon that putrescence,
As if to roast it to a turn,
And to give back a hundredfold to great Nature
The elements she had combined;
And the sky was watching that superb cadaver
Blossom like a flower.
So frightful was the stench that you believed
You'd faint away upon the grass.
The blow-flies were buzzing round that putrid belly,
From which came forth black battalions
Of maggots, which oozed out like a heavy liquid
All along those living tatters.
All this was descending and rising like a wave,
Or poured out with a crackling sound;
One would have said the body, swollen with a vague breath,
Lived by multiplication.
And this world gave forth singular music,
Like running water or the wind,
Or the grain that winnowers with a rhythmic motion
Shake in their winnowing baskets.
The forms disappeared and were no more than a dream,
A sketch that slowly falls
Upon the forgotten canvas, that the artist
Completes from memory alone.
Crouched behind the boulders, an anxious dog
Watched us with angry eye,
Waiting for the moment to take back from the carcass
The morsel he had left.
— And yet you will be like this corruption,
Like this horrible infection,
Star of my eyes, sunlight of my being,
You, my angel and my passion!
Yes! thus will you be, queen of the Graces,
After the last sacraments,
When you go beneath grass and luxuriant flowers,
To molder among the bones of the dead.
Then, O my beauty! say to the worms who will
Devour you with kisses,
That I have kept the form and the divine essence
Of my decomposed love!

— William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)
This and other translations from HERE

Sunday, November 15, 2015

Mark Ryden's Newest

My new porcelain edition. "Anatomia" ,edition of 9. #DodecahedronExhibition Paul Kasmin Gallery, New YorkOpening reception Dec 10. @kasmingallery

Posted by Mark Ryden on Saturday, November 14, 2015

Friday, November 13, 2015

First Cesarean Section by a British Citizen...A Woman?

See HERE for the strange story of Dr. James Barry/Margaret Ann Bulkley.

Portrait of James Barry 

See the title and story behind this image at Street Anatomy


Thursday, November 12, 2015

1970s Anatomical Pin-Up Girls

The Anatomical Basis of Medical Practice, 1970, got in a little bit of trouble for its depiction of women. Let's see why:


And there's more from Street Anatomy

Rediscovering Shunga

Shunga is a specific art form that portrays sexual union. The best known example is The Fisherman's Wife (see on my Sexiest Art post). Here is a little about its history from this Guardian review of an upcoming exhibition:

Having started out as paintings reserved for the upper classes in 17th century Japan, shunga were embraced by people from all backgrounds after the invention of woodblock printing enabled artists to turn out erotic images in their thousands.

That ribald brand of humour, and the clear delight artists took in mixing the preposterous with the erotic, prompted the Tokugawa shogunate to issue, in 1722, a ban on unauthorised books that included shunga.



 


Bone Church

See the coolest bone chandelier ever made. At least I assume it is.
At the beginning and end of the video, other ossuaries are mentioned as well. 
For more on this, see my previous post on Paul Koudounaris's Empire of Death

An Interactive Story About Dr. Kahn's Spectacular London Anatomical Museum

See the lovely story and images--with attendant noises, some hilariously squishy--HERE

Excerpts:

Ladies were admitted only on specified days, when Kahn insisted the most offensive models were removed from display.

The Museum, and its educational focus, initially found favour with publications like the Lancet and Medical Times. However, the establishment turned against Kahn when he started selling quack remedies. The Lancet then labelled the Museum ‘a den of obscenity… determinedly arranged for the purposes of depraving the minds of the ignorant and unwary’. 

Taken to court by The Society for the Suppression of Vice, Kahn was successfully prosecuted under the 1857 Obscene Publications Act, which made it illegal to publish texts on venereal disease and sexual health aimed at a general audience.