art

Yang Yongliang – “Artificial Wonderland II – From the New World.” Yang’s immense, detailed landscapes are incredible to me. My favorite has to be Moonlight, but they’re all amazing.

I was surprised not to be able to find a full-resolution image of the lovely panoramic background from the sacred forest scene in Princess Mononoke. I assembled this one from screengrabs. It had to be cropped a bit and there’s an imperfection on one of the trees that’s in the film, but it’s better than any other version I could find. Click this one for full size:

Japanese demons on an old scroll — Images from the *Bakemono zukushi*, an 18th or 19th c. Japanese scroll featuring many yokai and other creatures from folk tales.

The Gygerkarte, or Gyger Map (and detail), made in 1667 by Hans Conrad Gyger and one of the first ever to represent a landscape in this intricate and accurate fashion.

Athanasius Kircher welcomes guests to the Collegio Romano. Kircher speculated in his time that “plague in general is a living thing,” as this Public Domain Review piece explains.