The unscientific exotic bird man. Aert Schouman, (1710 – 1792). Peruse 18th century paintings of parrots from Guyana and North Brazil by a man from the Netherlands.

Ridiculously prolific & versatile, the 18th-century Dutch Republic painter from Dordrecht, Aert Schouman (1710 – 1792) was a glass engraver, printmaker, art teacher & collector/dealer.

Schouman did it all; still lifes, biblical & mythological themes, genre, historical and topographical works, portraits, sketches, etchings & mezzotints. He designed tapestries, painted wall-hangings and decorative objects such as fans and snuffboxes. He even designed and painted the glass windows of magic lanterns.

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.

In his portraits of parrots, Schouman has captured and seems to project to us, each bird’s personality.

Just a thin biographical trace remains of the Polish artist, Anna Berent. All that remains are 6 canvasses of real note. 4 of them contain elusive symbolism, indecipherable allegories of her own making that whisper to us of old age, death and passing. Their full meaning is as opaque and as lost in time as their creator.

Art & Design

The world just wasn’t ready for the “incorruptable spirit” of Danish artist, Johannes Holbek and his “Decadent Barbarism” (1904).

“Momoyogusa”. A World of Things : Flowers of a Hundred Generations by Kamisaka Sekka. In 1901, the son of a Samurai family was Japan’s “chosen one” to reframe Japanese art for the Western eye.

William Sharp’s sumptuous 1854 illustrations of The Great Water Lily of America, the “vegetable wonder” that owes it’s life to scarab beetles, has 10 foot wide leaves and flowers that smell of fruit.

Planet of the Apes in the late 1800s, a King of Foxes and a gathering of witches. Dali meets Poe and paints relentlessly in his studio on New York’s 10th St.

In 1878, an obscure Japanese artist named Watanabe Seitei went to a Paris dinner party and drew two birds in old-school kachōga style for the legendary painter Degas. 20 years later, Seitei was designing amazing avant garde woodcuts.

The world just wasn’t ready for the “incorruptable spirit” of Danish artist, Johannes Holbek and his “Decadent Barbarism” (1904).

Robert Riggs’s incredible “Legends of the Lenape Indians” of 1933.

Visit Norway’s remote Vestland coastline with Anders Folkestadås, turn of the century lighthouse builder & amateur photographer.

In 1878, an obscure Japanese artist named Watanabe Seitei went to a Paris dinner party and drew two birds in old-school kachōga style for the legendary painter Degas. 20 years later, Seitei was designing amazing avant garde woodcuts.

In the 1920s Paramount Pictures did imagine their black and white films in colour : colour publicity for black & white silent Westerns : The Covered Wagon.

The Swiss artist, Ernst Kreidolf (1863-1956). A Princess helped him give up the life of a farmer to put his faith and future in the hands of the flower fairies. He lived magically ever after.

The natural world, ancient Egypt, Meso-America and Japan. The Art Deco designer, Emile-Allain Séguy really mixed it all up in his series, “Prismes: 40 Planches de Dessins et Coloris Nouveaux” (1931).

Emile-Allain Séguy saw in butterflies “un monde somptueux de formes et de couleurs” (a world of sumptuous forms and colors) and he brought that world to vivid life in Papillons (1925).

William Sharp’s sumptuous 1854 illustrations of The Great Water Lily of America, the “vegetable wonder” that owes it’s life to scarab beetles, has 10 foot wide leaves and flowers that smell of fruit.

The incredible, psychedelic tropical fish fantasy of Louis Renard & Samuel Fallours : 1719’s Natural history of the rarest curiosities of the Indian Sea.

Dope fiends busted. 1950s narcotics crime photography from the archives of L.A. Enquirer.

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.

Erland Soderburg. A 1907 matricide. “Then I grabbed a small kitchen knife that was lying on the table. I hacked at her throat, then slashed it and the blood spurted out on me.”

Children of the Runestones. 300 A.D. Sweden.

The Dutch ocean liner Hooft, plagued by rats, burned three times and cursed by a French shipyard that lost 3 ocean liners to fire between 1930-1933.

1800s India. A mystery blue-eyed, pale skinned redhead is painted alongside those of 28 Mughal royals. An anonymous court artist evokes how richly the Indian “1%” lived, in these exquisite and rarely seen paintings.

Found. 3 Untitled works (1974). By an unknown artist working in a daylight atelier in Budapest.

8 mystery photographs from 1908/1910. From within some kind of medical institution or sanitorium somewhere in Eastern Europe. There’s one small clue: The Trendelenburg Position. Maybe.

Adventures in war torn 1950s Hungary with UVATERV’s anonymous state photography dept.

The totally unique Russian neoclassicist travel painter, Alexander Evgenievich Yakovlev. In the early 1900s, he travelled to Italy, Spain, Mongolia, China, Japan, France, Vietnam, Syria, Iran Afghanistan and Africa. His untimely death in Paris surely robbed us of so much more.

Browse some Chinese home decor inspiration swatches, personally selected, drawn & lithographed in 1867 by the original style guru, Owen Jones for his “Examples of Chinese ornament”.

Join a quirky Norwegian engineer named Kristian Berge on his skiing trips, meet his friends, see his naked selfie and enjoy his spendid photographs of work jaunts along the Western coast. 1912-1924.

Portuguese architect Fernando Varanda’s reference photographs of 1970s Yemen. Part Two.

The world just wasn’t ready for the “incorruptable spirit” of Danish artist, Johannes Holbek and his “Decadent Barbarism” (1904).

“Momoyogusa”. A World of Things : Flowers of a Hundred Generations by Kamisaka Sekka. In 1901, the son of a Samurai family was Japan’s “chosen one” to reframe Japanese art for the Western eye.

William Sharp’s sumptuous 1854 illustrations of The Great Water Lily of America, the “vegetable wonder” that owes it’s life to scarab beetles, has 10 foot wide leaves and flowers that smell of fruit.

Planet of the Apes in the late 1800s, a King of Foxes and a gathering of witches. Dali meets Poe and paints relentlessly in his studio on New York’s 10th St.

In 1878, an obscure Japanese artist named Watanabe Seitei went to a Paris dinner party and drew two birds in old-school kachōga style for the legendary painter Degas. 20 years later, Seitei was designing amazing avant garde woodcuts.

The unscientific exotic bird man. Aert Schouman, (1710 – 1792). Peruse 18th century paintings of parrots from Guyana and North Brazil by a man from the Netherlands.

The world just wasn’t ready for the “incorruptable spirit” of Danish artist, Johannes Holbek and his “Decadent Barbarism” (1904).

“Momoyogusa”. A World of Things : Flowers of a Hundred Generations by Kamisaka Sekka. In 1901, the son of a Samurai family was Japan’s “chosen one” to reframe Japanese art for the Western eye.

William Sharp’s sumptuous 1854 illustrations of The Great Water Lily of America, the “vegetable wonder” that owes it’s life to scarab beetles, has 10 foot wide leaves and flowers that smell of fruit.