cokerhead

The great German polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born #onthisday in 1749. As well as penning novels, poetry, criticism, and dramas, he also wrote various scientific treatises, including his 1810 book Zur Farbenlehre (Theory of Colours): https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/black-on-black #OTD

Ukiyo-e woodblock, by the late Edo artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798-1861), illustrating the legend of the “Sea Monk” or Umibōzu, a spirit in Japanese folklore. More here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-sea-monk-ca-1845

Comets from The Augsburg Book of Miracles, 16th century. 💫 More in our post “Flowers of the Sky”, of depictions spanning almost a whole millennium of comets, meteors, meteorites and shooting stars: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/flowers-of-the-sky #comets #meteors #shootingstars #meteorshower

Steel engraving illustration by Gustave Doré for a French edition of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven, posthumously published in 1884.⁠ ⁠ One of 700+ prints available from our online shop — https://publicdomainreview.org/shop/fine-art-prints

More of these highly elaborate ornament prints, mostly in the grotesque style, from the collection of the Rijksmuseum here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/16th-century-ornament-prints

Happy #WorldWaterDay! Fetch yourself a big glass of the good stuff and take a look at the watery wonder which is Hamonshu (1903), a Japanese book of wave and ripple designs: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/hamonshu-a-japanese-book-of-wave-and-ripple-designs-1903

Ernst Heinrich Haeckel (1904)

From his collection Kunstformen der Natur.

ernst haeckel : actiniae (1904)

Radiolaria illustrations by Ernst Haeckel in Kunstformen der Natur, 1904 – plate 51: Polycyttaria; plate 21: Acanthometra