Author: JF Ptak

On Perspective, Comparison, and the Reverse Tower
JF Ptak Science Books Post 2483

As M. Chabat writes,”Considérés au point de vue de la forme et de l’ornementation extérieures un grand nombre de puits de toutes les époques peuvent être regardés comme de véritables œuvres d’art…”, which is certainly true of the well at the citadel of Turin–even the elevation and (particularly) the plan of the structure.

Funny that this is what I find most interesting in this big engraved sheet from Jean Nicolas Louis Durand’s monumental and important semi-biblical work on the history of architecture, but, so it goes. (The work is Recueil et Parallele des Edifices, and was printed in Venice by Giuseppe Antonelli in Venice in 1833; it comes some 31 years after the appearance of the first edition, greatly expanded, with 273 plates compared to 90 in the first.)
- The original engraving is available for sale at the blog’s bookstore, here.
There’s plenty on this sheet worthy of attention–and as the Durand work is concerned, it is one of the few to feature towers. And in the case of the Turin well, it may be considered (here at least and not probably by anyone who knows anything at all about architecture) to be a reverse tower. This is slim pickin’s so far as engineering reasoning goes–or is it? Why if it was so removed from logic would the considerable and considered Durant include the thing on his page of towers?

One of the remarkable points on this structure was the dual circular staircases that would allow the horses hauling water from the depths for go up and down without having to pass on another.

The other thing about Durand was that his work is considered a great scientific improvement in the description of architecture, and seems to me to be the first work to compare different sorts of buildings (and from different periods) all in the same scale, on pone piece of paper, side-by-side. It seems that in the history of formalization and categorization and classification that this business of comparative architecture that someone would have used a single standard of description for size–but evidently not.
- See here for an interesting appraisal of Durand along with 90 links for each of the images of the first edition. (Quandom.com)
“Le puits de la citadelle de Turin dont la fig 2413 représente la coupe et le plan à une échelle moitié moindre est établi dans les mêmes conditions. On ne saurait oublier de citer également le puits de Bicétre près de Paris achevé en 1735 d après les plans de Boffrand et qui a 57 mètres de profondeur sur 3 mètrrs de largeur L eau s en extrait au moyen de deux seaux contenant chacun près de 270 litres d eau et pesant 600 kilogrammes lesquels montent et descendent ù l aide d une charpente tournante mue par 8 chevaux cette eau est reçue dans un réservoir d où elle est distribuée par des conduits dans les diverses parties de l établissement. Considérés au point de vue de la forme et de l ornementation extérieures un grand nombre de puits de toutes les époques peuvent être regardés comme de véritables œuvres d’art…” Dictionnaire des termes employés dans la construction …: volume G.-Z, by Pierre Chabat, 1872
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JF Ptak

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Anticipation, History of — Architecture and Building
Mathematical Beauty, 1840

JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post

I’m just revisiting an earlier post about the beauty of a found mathematical notebook–its quiet assuredness, its composition, its care, its trying….just lovely, speaking of the efforts of a young person back in 1840.

For more, see https://historyofideasblog.com/thesciencebookstore/2014/03/the-beauty-of-mathematical-manuscripts-1840.html

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JF Ptak

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mathematics, logic
Concentration, ca. 1572.
JF Ptak Science Books Post 2482

This engraved portrait of the very striking Jan Cornelis Vermeijen (also “Vermeyer”, and here known as “Ioanni Mao”) appears in Dominicus Lampsonius (Latinised form of Dominique Lampsone) Pictorum Aliquot Celebrium Germaniae Inferioris Effigies and published by Volcxen Diericx (1570-1600 fl). (The first edition was published in 1572, and I believe that this image appeared somewhat later in the century as there are some differences in the text around the image.) Diericx was the “widow of Hieronymus Cock , who took over his business ‘Aux Quatre Vents’ after his death in 1570. She and her new husband, Lambrecht Bottin are mentioned together by Plantijn at the head of a list of printmakers and print sellers in Antwerp, which was assembled between 1577 and 1580. Since the death of Hieronymus Cock in 1570 to her death in 1600 all the prints published by her have the sentence Aux Quatre Vents without the name of Cock”.–British Museum online.

I’ve long liked this portrait of Cornelis Vermeijen (ca. 1500-1559), I think mostly for his hands and for the ultra-concentrated bit of concentration that is going on in his eye/forehead conversation. Even though I ‘ve owned this for a long time I’ve never known about the placement of the palm tree over Jan’s left shoulder or the murderous attack going on over his right.

The work was executed by Theodore Galle (signed in the plate at very bottom-left) after the engraving by Jan Wierix (1549-1620, who signed his name “I H W” in the bottom right of the portrait. The other Dutch artists comprising the illustrations include The artists included in the book are (in this order): “Hubert van Eyck, Jan van Eyck, Hieronymus Bosch, Rogier van der Weyden, Dirk Bouts, Bernard van Orley, Jan Mabuse, Joachim Patinir, Quentin Matsys, Lucas van Leyden, Jan van Amstel, Joos van Cleve, Matthys Cock, Herri met de Bles, Pieter Coecke van Aelst, Jan van Scorel, Lambert Lombard, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Willem Key, Lucas Gassel, Frans Floris, and Hieronymus Cock.” (Wiki)
- The original is offered for sale at the blog’s bookstore, here.
The legend reads “Quos homines quae non majus loca pinacit et urbes Visendum late quicquid et Orbis habet Vum terra sequiturque mari te Carole Caesar Pingeret ut dextrae fortia facta tilt 6 Quae mox Attalicis fulgerent aurea teactis Materiem artifici sed superante manu Nec minus ille sua spectacula praebuit Celso conspicuus vertice grata tib…”
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Art — Art History — Prints–looking HARD/deeply at
Color in Black & White, and Black in Black & Black

JF Ptak Science Books Post 2481

Earlier in this blog appeared a happy little post of odd uses of color to illustrate color, black and white to illustrate color, and nothing to illustrate something called “Three Map Fits: a Color Map with Color and No Map, a Color Map in Black & White; AND a Black & White Map in White (only)” here. There was an appearance there of a small pamphlet by Albert Coble (Games of Colors, Kindergarten and Primary Exercises). on the uses of color in kindergartens in which color exercises were presented though no color was actually employed in the illustration, though the general arrangement is clear enough:

It is a happy thing that there is a second Coble pamphlet on hand (!, Color Exercises (The Coble Color Tests) Instructions for Primary and Kindergarten Work, 1923 ) and this one though still in black and white now has color designations:

The idea that Coble is writing about (color and kids and the education of young children in the different forms/varieties of color and how colors are produced) is very interesting, and no doubt that the set of color blocks used in the exercises would have been lovely in themselves, but I think the author would have made more headway had he had at least one color illustration.

That said, the world of black & white and grays is a lovely one, and as long as we’re talking about black & white in color, let’s look at a pamphlet that is all about black & black. Egyptian Lacquer Manufacturing Company (“Rockefeller Center, NY, NY”) specialized in heavy industrial paints and published some small but fine catalogs to sell their services and products. One of them, Egyptian Black Lacquer for Industrial Products (1938) contains a paint chip plate to compare its various blacks. There is nothing finer, really, than a really black black, an all-out black, a midnight-and-no-light-source black, a B-1 stealth bomber black, a Sommerfeld black. And Egyptian comes really close to a good solid black black, what they called their “dead black”. I can’t reproduce it here and give this black any justice, as it is hard to reproduce a black with no lustre that isn’t that lacquer/paint itself–but trust this writer, these blacks in real life are as differentiated as their names imply:

And that dead black? They mean it. Or meant it.

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JF Ptak

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Color & its advanced Abuses
History of Hair, Part 5: Hair Restoration and the Big Giant Suck

JF Ptak Science Books

I have written several times on this blog about hair: human hair maps, psycho-babble-istic brain vibrating finger hair restorations, and that sort. (Just check out “hair” in the Google search box and you’ll find a number of posts.) The fact is that the patent/quack medicines/cures/fix-alls for hair are still entertaining–mainly because though the methods have changed the need still seems to be there and be a constant sorrow.

There is not much to say about this advertisement except that it was a full page in the Illustrated London News (April 21, 1906, p. 573) and was therefore expensive. The apparatus was basically supposed to suck the hair up and out of its Very Secret Place on the scalp and grow, so we know that the Evans Vacuum Cap Co didn’t spend very much money on research. And the product itself is a chair, the vacuum cap, and a pump, so the engineering part was not very expensive, either. The thing was offered money-back if not delighted after 60 days, so the vacuum must have at least been effective enough to stimulate some sort of sensation on the wearer and maybe even produce a scalp-hickey. Perhaps people were really surprised that after 90 or 900 days that the Hiding Hair was still so.

No mention of price, though–that would’ve been nice.

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Absurdist, Unintentional — Bad Ideas
Food as a Weapon, 1915

JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post

There are few people I think who can recall the names of any U.S. secretaries of agriculture–the notable exception being Earl Butz, who during his tenure from 1971-1976 was known for being vulgar and profane, a quality which led to his forced resignation. Another notable but less-remembered quote had to do with the thing he was secretary of: food. He remarked that “food is a weapon”, and although considering the source, the quote was not intended as offensive ordnance. He explained that the best method of fighting the Cold War was to provide food and the means of producing it to countries that might fall under the influence of Communism to secure the birthright for their people. (He perhaps was building on President Eisenhower’s Food for Peace Program that began in 1954.)

The Starvation of Germany was a piece of British propaganda, an explanation of the blockade being used against Germany to bring it to negotiations to bring an end to the World War. It is not the end of World War II as I first thought–but the end of World War I. There were blockades in both, and each being very detrimental to the population of Germany–killings thousands of German citizens–though not enough to convince the Germans to sue for peace.

One thing that the 1915 pamphlet couldn’t yet mention–that by the end of 1918 between 400,000-725,000 Germans had died of starvation or diseases related to lack of food.

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Militaria — World War I
Filling-in the Map, 1863

JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post

The “Impending battle” here in the sub-head of this issue of the New York Herald that I picked up recently was Chickamauga.

I doubt many knew what was coming.

The map fills the entire front of the paper and is 24 impressive inches tall. It moves from the Clinch River east across Greeneville/Knoxville to Asheville, then south to Milledgeville, and across the state west nearly to Alabama, and north to Atlanta, west to Rome, and then north again to Dalton and Chickamauga.

General Rosecrans had made his move south-east days before, and the battle was actually engaged the day before, on the 18th; on the 20th, it would be over, Bragg and the Confederates with a major victory that would be overturned in the next two months by U.S. Grant. There were more than 36,000 casualties on this field of battle, the second highest amount of the Civil War next to Gettysburg that occurred two months earlier.

The map was waiting to be filled in. With more.

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Maps, Cartography, History of Mapmaking
“Visionary” Highways with Non-Visionary Engineering (1938)
JF Ptak Science Books Post 2480

I thought that I had mentioned this pamphlet before–mainly because of its provocative cover art–but no. It comes from the bookstore’s collection of many hundreds (a thousand?) of unusual book/pamphlet cover art. “A Dream, a Reality” and/or “Coast to Coast Transcontinental Super Highway” isn’t actually the title of this work even though they are on the cover; it is mostly a caption for an interior image though it somehow percolated topside. The real title is The Highway of Tomorrow made Possible by the Ideal of Today, which gets to the subject of the work even though it is slightly unwieldy. It is difficult to say who wrote this though Mr. T.E. Steiner (“Sponsor”, of Wooster, Ohio) and which somehow found its way to a fourth edition in its two years of existence, published and promoted in undoubtedly small numbers by the “Transcontinental Stream-Lined Super Highway of the United States of America” in 1938.

This is all about super-highways, and mainly replacing the old roads with four new roads that are as straight as straight could be. A map of the proposals features one line of the highway is straight from San Francisco to Boston; another from Laredo, Texas (!) direct to International Falls, Minnesota (!); a third not-straight shot from Boston-Allentown-near-Valdosta Ga-Miami; and another from near-Valdosta to Cleveland. A schematic of this map though drops near-Valdosta for Jacksonville, and has the Boston-Miami route further east to include NYC and D.C., which are omitted from the map. Ah, well.
- This item is available for sale at the blog bookstore, here.
I think that the author–an accomplished “business man” was was the head of a “manufacturing company” in Ohio and a coal company in West Virginia (and “employer of labor”) –was not much of an engineer, because the plan ignores topography and the highway design itself is pretty bad, especially the parts on exit/entrance (which the author takes particular care to note are separately copyrighted (?)) bits, which are killers.

In any event, the super highway extending into the clouds on the cover is all I’m here for. Mr. Steiner no doubt attracted some attention for the project because of the enormous pork and public works potential, what with the building of 6,000 miles or whatever of an 8-lane highway, which is billions of square feet of paving times some multiplier. So a lot of money would be spent, which means, well, a lot of possible interest–after all, it did get so far as a hearing before the Committee on Roads, U.S. House of Representatives, on May 18, 1937.

This no doubt was a “visionary”proposal of some sort, though the engineering aspects of it were more imaginary than anything else.
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Anticipation, History of — Architecture and Building — Atlas of Dead Ideas
Details in Terrestrial/Celestial Globes, 1723
JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post

The main object in this engraving–the presentation of two globes, one terrestrial and one celestial–is perhaps less interesting than secondary figures accompanying it. The two small insets of solar and lunar eclipses are instructive and pretty, while the compass rose is full and surprisingly stubby, making that example fairly uncommon–and much more attractive when isolated and cleaned up a bit. So too for the rudimentary but elegant comparison of the sizes of the planets compared to the Sun that surrounds the celestial globe–again, isolated and defined, the image is striking.
- The original map is available here at the blog’s bookstore.
This from the full image:
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Information, Quantitative Display of — Maps, Cartography, History of Mapmaking — Prints–looking HARD/deeply at
Lavish Chromolithographs of the Mosaics at Basilica San Marco (1886)
JF Ptak Science Books Post 2479
- [The originals are large–27×21″ or so–and files average about 2 meg; so in this program when the images are reduced so much much of the detail gets removed; however, all the detail is gloriously back when you click in to each image to expand. Also just scroll below for a full lineup.]
The chromolithographs and engravings featured on this page appeared in the massive La Basilica di San Marino du Venezia, published by the prolific Ferdinand Ongania in 1886. It is an exhaustive study of the iconic building, the publication being known chiefly I think for its very large and sumptuous chromolithographs of the building’s architecture, art, and endless detail. It forms two volumes of an overall monumental 12-volume epic, though these images comprised volumes that were complete in themselves.

The images (again, they are large at 27×21″, 68x53cm, and are packed with detail) are printed on a very thick paper that will now crack if you try the double-fold test, so although the paper is stable you do not want to bend it, though you wouldn’t want to do that, anyway. Each sheet has a protective paper guard attached to it on the left side, covering the entire image–the reason why you may see a shadow along one long side is just from the rolled-back protective sheet not getting completely out of the way. Also all of the margins are not necessarily included in the photos–there were certain limitations in making the photographs, and some margins just didn’t make it entirely into the picture.

So I decided to post these pictures to the interwebtube because there aren’t any others there–perhaps the images will be useful to someone. (Also they’re all for sale, so if you’d like one, just ask.)
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JF Ptak

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Architecture and Building — Art