The unscientific exotic bird man of Dordrecht. Aert Schouman, 1710 – 1792.

Ridiculously prolific & versatile, the 18th-century Dutch Republic painter from Dordrecht, Aert Schouman (4 March 1710 – 5 July 1792) was a glass engraver, printmaker, art teacher & collector/dealer. He did it all; still lifes, biblical & mythological themes, genre, historical and topographical works, portraits, sketches, etchings & mezzotints. He designed tapestries, painted wall-hangings, decorated objects such as fans, snuffboxes and even the glass windows of a magic lantern.

From out of all of all those those endless and complex biblical scenes, mythic tangents & dreamy, bucolic landscapes there’s one thing that just pops out and says “hi” to us today. His graphic natural history studies of exotic bird life (especially the heads, the portraits).

Aert was no scientist, but he was knew his exotic birds in detail & was deeply devoted to renering authenitic, true-to-life depictions of them.

Edme-François Jomard

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Shaffrons.

1950s Tibet in hand-tinted technicolor & old school black and white. Courtesy of The Chinese People’s Liberation Army propaganda dept.

“Views of ancient monuments in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan,” 1844, by the East London architect, artist & original tomb raider, Frederick Catherwood.

Frank Eugene, son of a German baker & a beer hall singer and his signature “unphotographic photography.”

Niles Spencer the Precisionist. A lost figure on the fringe of a fringe art movement.

They don’t get more obscure or rare than L. Lu Vonago of Krasnoyarsk, a small town in the Russian Republic of Khakassia. His entire known output consists of just 23 pictures. He shot 2 hotel fires and one monomictic Lake resort in the early 1900s.

Colour plates from “Gems and precious stones of North America” (1890) & “History of the gems found in North Carolina” (1907) by George Frederick Kunz, (1856-1932).

Sex, science & sumptuous flowers in Dr. Robert John Thornton’s 1807 epic, A New Illustration of the Sexual System of Carolus von Linnaeus: The Temple of Flora.

“The hungry lion throws itself on the antelope, devours him. . . Birds of prey have each torn a strip of flesh from the poor animal that is shedding a tear! The sun sets.” Henri Rousseau.

John Martin’s sister was murdered by a neighbour, one brother was a “perfectly cracked” eccentric philosopher/inventor & the other an insane religious firestarter. Perhaps it’s no surprise John became the ultimate harbinger of The Apocolypse.

Outraged. The 1896 murder of Helen Thomson. Markinch, Fife, Scotland.

Achille Lemot learns the exact price of a mistress in 1870s Paris.

The mystery of The Unidentified Artist Formerly Known As William Etty. Is he actually Quiller Orchardson? Examine their nudes carefully & decide for yourself.

The world’s first abstract painter was a Swedish mystic guided by spirits. Hilda af Klint wanted her work kept secret until 20 years after her death.

Romancing Ruins. Bartholomeous Breenburgh and his strange vision of Rome.

1950s Tibet in hand-tinted technicolor & old school black and white. Courtesy of The Chinese People’s Liberation Army propaganda dept.

“Views of ancient monuments in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan,” 1844, by the East London architect, artist & original tomb raider, Frederick Catherwood.

Treacherous rapids and remote shamanic Siberian tribes. Photography from the Russian explorer I.G. Ivanov’s 1913 Land Management Expeditions into the remote Gornaia Shoria mountain region.

Almquist & Cöster’s squeaky clean, fluorescent vision of late 1950s Sweden.

The elusive Alexander Rothaug (1870-1946), the Viennese painter who rendered myth a reality while his own life remains opaque.

Trains, trams, trucks, cars and rubberneckers. 1950-1960: the Dutch Golden Age of Road Wreckage. Crash scene photography from the archives of the Amsterdam Police.

Inadvertent genius. City of Pittsburg Works Photography. Hump Removal Project 1908-17. By Anonymous.

Reijer Stolk.

The unscientific exotic bird man of Dordrecht. Aert Schouman, 1710 – 1792.

Edme-François Jomard

Almquist & Cöster’s squeaky clean, fluorescent vision of late 1950s Sweden.

The elusive Alexander Rothaug (1870-1946), the Viennese painter who rendered myth a reality while his own life remains opaque.

Trains, trams, trucks, cars and rubberneckers. 1950-1960: the Dutch Golden Age of Road Wreckage. Crash scene photography from the archives of the Amsterdam Police.