PINK

Leonardo's Mystery Penis

It all starts with this little guy, found in one of Leonardo's notebooks:

Casual reminder that in one of Leonardo da Vinci’s many notebooks containing innumerable artistic and scientific sketches and notes of incomprehensible important, there is a sketch of two penises with legs and tails walking towards a crudely drawn anus. The sketch was most likely done by Leonardo’s apprentice Salai, who was not only very likely one of Leonardo’s lovers, but who was also infamously mischievous. Better yet, the anus is literally labeled “Salai.” So either Salai drew these while Leonardo wasn’t looking just to annoy his boyfriend, or Leonardo himself put actual time and energy into drawing these. Either way, the human race is truly blessed to have made such a discovery. There are dick drawings like the ones you see on desks in school in Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks. Please cherish this information.

Learn more at Dangerous Minds.

Activist Body Painting

Artists shed light on the diversity of undersea creatures using body paint. See The Guardian for more.

Krakatoa and Color in Painting

The orange skies above Europe from the eruption of Krakatoa most famously influenced Edvard Munch's The Scream:

Munch used the stratified azure-free skies as a metaphor for angst:

Munch, Angst

Almost like a scribble nimbus from Peanuts comics.

See more Krakatoa Sunsets from The Public Domain Review. Here's a taste:

VESALIUS AND THE BODY METAPHOR

from the Public Domain Review

"We find city streets in the digestive system, a winepress in the sinuses, a storeroom in the stomach, and reins and pulleys in the ligaments. The Vesalian body was not gears and oil, but rather wood, stone, and all things organic and ingeniously designed by Nature...."

Relics and Beer

THE WEEK IN NIPPLES 

by The Guardian

Anatomy of the Woman vs. Beauty Trends

"SUPERVENUS"

Thanks GF!

Skin selling fantasy in Detroit

I can't exactly tell if this article is about personal issues, skin-related crafts, or the economics of Detroit, but the hell with it.

Anamorphic skulls

For anyone who wants to be able to explain Holbein's The Ambassadors of 1533.

Or you could just get one of these: 

New Things

New Stories!:

Stone Babies

Medieval Execution

and

Evil Medical Experiments


Thanks AZ!

Because things got weird in the Victorian Era too

See THIS ARTICLE on Victorian Occultism and Synesthesia from The Public Domain Review

Persian Anatomy and Books with Volvelles

Very cool video of a Persian anatomical manuscript--one similar to the one in one of my first posts!

Anyone interested in this should check out the work of Emilie Savage-Smith

And what about this awesome book with volvelles?:

A much more colorful manuscript--that is also available in facsimile--is Petrus Apianus's Astronomicum Caesarium of 1540. If you're interested, see the writings of Suzanner Karr Schmidt, especially her most recent article in Cabinet.

There are other cool book videos from the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies at Penn.

Decomposition of the Body in Ivory

HERE is more information on the ivory sculpture below from the Museo di Capodimonte.


Morbid Anatomy provided some beautiful pictures of it, including this:

They are right in saying that these are based on memento mori in ivory such as this:

and these on the right:

But it was also based on these:

Midwifery manikins

See more from HERE

Learning the Basics About Art History Online

Check out the Khan Academy and Kenney Mencher

Pro-Choice Activism, On a Boat

In a recent article in the New York Times called The Dawn of the Post-Clinic Abortion, I first read about Rebecca Gomperts, a Dutch woman who, after thorough legal research, started a campaign to set sail from the Netherlands and allow women from Ireland and elsewhere to board her boat and obtain a drug that allows women to miscarry within a limited time from conception.

Here is the Times excerpt from the documentary Vessel:

Corny

Because I had to share this from the Public Domain Review:

Camouflage

According to Google the etymology of this word is as such:
First World War: from French, from camoufler ‘to disguise’ (originally thieves' slang), from Italian camuffare ‘disguise, deceive’, perhaps by association with French camouflet ‘whiff of smoke in the face’.

This story from the Guardian on new camouflage studies gives a basic introduction on how we can use camouflage studies for other purposes, whether for safety or disguise.

Another article, this one from the New York Times, chronicles a very interesting ancillary topic--translucence and "mirroring" in animals. And there's a little bioluminescence in there to boot!

And here's a great video of blanching, or the act of a normally transparent animal making themselves opaque: http://nyti.ms/1pjCUm3

Hospital architecture

The New York Times recently came out with an article on rethinking hospital room design.

Modern healthcare architecture has always sought to be clean-looking, streamlined, and bright, but with new practices, machinery, and patient input, the patient experience is becoming a primary concern.

Much better than the plague houses.

Victorian Hair Decor at the Centre Furnace, State College, PA

Do Mermaids Menstruate?

The Mary Sue tackling this important question with all sorts of lady creatures.

Fashioning the Recently Deceased

A very cool story via The Chirurgeon's Apprentice on one woman finding new, meaningful ways to dress the dead:

Drop dead gorgeous: fashion design for deceased

New news stories on Darwin's orchid obsession

One from NPR

18th-Century Hair - Bigger than the 1980s

It starts with this little lady I've been wondering about for a while:

When the fashion unconscious need to figure something like this out, they start from the beginning. But along the way, they (I) may find some interesting reading material (images are links to further information):

And there will be many more to come, surely.

Also, there is a hair museum in Missouri.

The Cutsiest of Anatomies

"Anatomie nach Rembrandt" (Anatomy after Rembrandt) by Albert Schäfer-Alst

From Die anatomische Sektion in bildlicher Darstellung, Heidegger and Cetto, 1967

Museums to See

Firstly, a list of Must-See Medical Museums in the US:

http://culturemedicinepsychiatry.com/2014/07/22/news-must-see-medical-museums-in-the-usa/

There are surely more, including the New York Academy of Medicine, where the library often has exhibits, though mostly online at the moment. There is also the Beautiful Science permanent exhibition at the Dibner Hall of the History of Science.

Atlas Obscura can provide some other interesting places a little further off the beaten path and all around the world. I have a couple off the top of my head to see in Europe:

London, UK: The Wellcome Collection
Edinburgh, UK: The Hunterian
Leiden, The Netherlands: The Boerhaave
Budapest, Hungary: The Semmelweis Museum
Florence, Italy: The Museo Galileo and La Specola
    and for more in Italy see Anatomia Italia

Wine for Women

Some wine I discovered a while back in Germany, with anatomical advertisements to boot:

Contact Taxidermatitis

First, an article on hipsters getting into taxidermy.

The Morbid Anatomy Museum has done quite a bit in this area, offering classes on how to make victorian mouse dioramas from the little dead guys.

And, of course, Crappy Taxidermy has been floating around the social networld for a while now.

Buzzfeed has caught on, as they do, with a whole section on dead animals and taxidermy.

And who can forget this guy?:

CHUCK TESTA

New Entertainments

In addition to the blogs below that I follow frequently as well as NPR's Science Friday and Radiolab, here are a few new places I've been finding entertainment:

The History Blog--concentrates on objects in history:
http://www.thehistoryblog.com/

The BBC show In Our Time
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qykl

And to delve into historical fiction:

Penny Dreadful, a magical victorian universe of anatomy, urbanism, vampires, ancient languages, etc. etc.:

And The Knick, a much more realistic medical drama set in early 20th century New York:

Anatomical Music Video

Damon Albarn - Everyday Robots

On the Color Mauve

More Torture in the Name of Fashion

For more images of the ridiculous, see CVLT Nation's "It Hurts to Be Beautiful"

Inspiration for Sea Serpents

The oarfish was likely the animal that sparked stories about sea serpents that made their way into maps, bestiaries, and the popular imagination.

From Olaus Magnus's map of 1539 (more info HERE)

Fantastical Giant Worms

We are all familiar with some giant worm or another--particularly the ones from pop culture. But these aren't new imaginations. Some of them are based on much earlier legendary stories of giant worms such as the minhocão. 

And there is new evidence that paleozoic sand worms existed in the soils of England.

The Dead French Menagerie

The New York Times recently released this article about a specific sectino of Paris's natural history museum. Here, the skeletons of thousands of animals are displayed in the 19th-century setting, reminding viewers of great naturalists like Buffon.

Erotic Art, Sexual Aids, etc. etc. from the Wellcome Collection

In a new exhibition, the Wellcome will have plenty of things that society keeps hidden out on full display. A full set of objects here, and some of my favorite examples:

Peruvian, date unknown

Greek, 5th century BCE

Chinese, date unknown

German, 1980s

Color and Urine

The wheel consisted of 20 colours ranging from ‘white as wellwater’ to ‘ruddy as pure intense gold’ and lastly ‘black as very dark horn.’

The Architecture of Game of Thrones

Architizer looks at the basic places where Game of Thrones filmed in order to figure out what places were inspirations for King's Landing, Astapor, "The North", etc.

Le Mag thinks various cities or courts stand for specific places in Europe.

If you can't remember what the places look like, see the various title sequence videos where the cities emerge like automated toys.

Qarth

The armillary sphere that acts as the sun over this sequence is itself taken from Renaissance designs, such as the amazing one in the Museo Galileo.

Intro scene armillary sphere

Museo Galileo armillary sphere

A Woman's Heart...

From HERE

Thanks DCK!

Pareidolia

A term for seeing things where there are none.

Like this pebble, which is a manuport picked up likely for its aesthetic appeal and strange face-like appearance.

From Wikipedia:

"In his notebooks, Leonardo da Vinci wrote of pareidolia as a device for painters, writing "if you look at any walls spotted with various stains or with a mixture of different kinds of stones, if you are about to invent some scene you will be able to see in it a resemblance to various different landscapes adorned with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, plains, wide valleys, and various groups of hills. You will also be able to see divers combats and figures in quick movement, and strange expressions of faces, and outlandish costumes, and an infinite number of things which you can then reduce into separate and well conceived forms."

And here, a list of rock formations that look like human beings.

Pyrotechnics in art

More on Picturing Pyrotechnics from The Public Domain Review