Baghdad Battery

Robert Gould

Charles Doudelet (1861-1938), “Pan”, #3, 1895 Source

Philippe Caza, “Galaxie”, #100, Sept. 1972 Source

Ph. Guy Bourdin

Megaloceros with Line of Dots, Lascaux Cave, France, c. 16000 -15000 BCE

Page decorations for The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1899 edition.

Gold armband with Herakles knot, 3rd–2nd century BCE

Kohno Michisei, seen here at twenty-two, presents himself in a pose modeled on Western Renaissance master Albrecht Durer's (1471-1528) self-portrait produced in 1500. Between 1914 and 1924 a remarkable quantity of high-quality portraiture was produced by Japanese artists who blended Western and East Asian painting traditions. While some of these painters had first-hand knowledge of Western painting, most, like Michisei, culled their images from books and magazines. The young artist was raised in an environment filled with powerful iconic images. His father was a portrait photographer, an artist in both Japanese and Western modes, and an active member of the Russian Orthodox Church. These influences are readily apparent in this self-portrait. Michisei's perceptive understanding of classic Western images was based on constant perusal of his father's extensive library; a portrait's potential for psychological and spiritual impact was impressed on him through exposure to religious icons used in the Orthodox liturgy. (source)

Dante’s Inferno (1967) | dir. Ken Russell

By Giovanni Dupré

Owl on Maple Branch Under Full Moon by Utagawa Hiroshige

“La Ballade de Lenore” — Horace Vernet (1839)

Ph. Henri Prestes, Phantom Plains

"Cat and Moth" by Neva Hosking

'L'apres midi'. Olivier Neuray. 2026.

From The Book of Wonder (1912) by Lord Dunsany Illustration by Sidney Herbert Sime