Saturday 26 November 2016

Master Iitsu’s Chicken-Rib Picture Book (1823)



An abalone diver by Hokusai, from a great piece in the New York Review of books HERE on the Manga of Hokusai.
Image Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Wednesday 23 November 2016

Aranei, or a natural history of spiders (1793)


From HERE.

A natural history of birds: Illustrated with a hundred and one copper plates, curiously engraven from the life (1731)


A superb image of a common Buzzard by Eleazer Albin (1690-1742). From the first of three volumes of an illustrated catalogue of common birds. Published and engraved by Eleazar Albin and hand coloured entirely by Albin and his daughter Elizabeth. There were only 89 published.  The Title Page reads, "Published by the Author Eleazar Albin, and carefully colour'd by his Daughter and Self, from the Originals, drawn from the live Birds."  From HERE.

Tuesday 22 November 2016

Book Pages




All Copyright M.G. Reed 2016

Monday 21 November 2016

Sunday 20 November 2016

The Chinese Fringetail Telescope Goldfish (1908)

 From HERE.

Baedeker's Switzerland and the adjacent portions of Italy, Savoy and Tyrol (1899)



A city map of Bern, from HERE.

Greensward (1858)

A superb piece HERE on the work of Frederick Law Olmstead, designer of New York Central Park, amongst others.

Below, a schematic of Olmstead's plan from his Greensward proposal with Calvert Vaux 1868 - a re-print of the plans from 1858 (HERE).



Saturday 19 November 2016

A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia (1590)


HERE, by Thomas Harriot. A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia, : of the commodities and of the nature and manners of the naturall inhabitants. Discouered by the English colony there seated by Sir Richard Greinuile knight in the yeere 1585. Which remained vnder the gouernment of twelue monethes, at the speciall charge and direction of the honourable Sir Walter Raleigh knight lord warden of the stanneries who therein hath beene fauoured and authorised by her maiestie and her letters patents:

Thursday 17 November 2016

Ladies Boating (1838)


By Utagawa Kuniyoshi. (HERE)

Coming Down the Wye (1942)

A chapter heading engraving from Coming Down the Wye by the Irish engraver and writer Robert Gibbings (1889-1958).

Wednesday 16 November 2016

The Human Advantage: A New Understanding of How Our Brain Became Remarkable (2016)

A great review HERE of The Human Advantage: A New Understanding of How Our Brain Became Remarkable by  by Suzana Herculano-Houzel. 

The answer is that you need a counting method that can estimate up to 86 billion individual cells with high accuracy and precision. Below is the decision tree for choosing between the isotropic fractionator method used by by Suzana Herculano-Houzel and her colleaugues and unbiased stereology (from HERE).

 

Sunday 13 November 2016

Falcon (c. 1814)



A falcon from Hokusai shashin gafu (The Picture Book of Realistic Paintings of Hokusa).c 1814. Image from HERE.

AVOID NOT WRITING (c 2015)



Image by Edward Tufte (HERE).

Friday 4 November 2016

Men Fishing (1881)


   
Men Fishing by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798 - 1861) from HERE.

Wednesday 2 November 2016

Olivetti Portable Typewriter (1949)

An Olivetti portable typewriter (1949) from the Museum of Modern art Design collection; selected objects 1970 HERE.

Tuesday 1 November 2016

The Curse of Dimensionality (1968)






Posted by Edward Tufte - The Curse of Dimensionality Saul Steinburg 1968 (HERE)

Hopton Wood Stone



Hopton-Wood stone is a very fine grained limestone found near Middleton-by-Wirksworth in Derbyshire. It is suitable for high quality architectural work and for carving. Some of the UK's most iconic buildings are made or cladded with it: the Bank of England, Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. The Hopton-Wood Stone Firms Ltd commissioned a book about Hopton Wood stone in 1947 that is HERE.

Above, the Hopton Wood quarry.