the design of the freak (popular entertainment at the fringe of normality)

a 26-month-old hairy baby was one of the attractions on show at the freak circuses around the mid-1800s in New York

four-legged myrtle corbin. presumably she had two sets of female genitalia

Eddie Masher, "the skeleton dude"

'Big-footed' Fanny Mills

Anne Leek, the armless lady, joined a freak show to earn a living

around mid-19th century, both in england and the US, "freak shows" finally reached maturity, as successful commercially run enterprises. PTBarnum in the US was a major producer of freak entertainment. in 1842, PTB introduced his first major hoax, a creature with the head of a monkey and the tail of a fish, known as the "feejee" mermaid. PTB followed that with the exhibition of charles ctratton, the dwarf. "General Tom Thumb" who was then four years of age but was stated to be 11.

charles ctratton, the dwarf "general tom thumb"

charles had stopped growing after the first six months of his life, at which point he was 25 inches (64 cm) tall and weighed 15 pounds. with heavy coaching and natural talent, the boy was taught to imitate people from hercules to napoleon. by five, he was drinking wine and by seven smoking cigars for the public's amusement.

my point is that "freak" is a "design" for the masses. part entertainment, part exotic, part wondrous, at the fringes of admissible and the society of the normal. as instrumentalized as they were, these creatures were admired, a social phenomenon which played in both directions.   

the designer/illustrator goes to war

During the 1860's war reporting galvanized journalism, and the call for graphic designers offered opportunity for young artists to acquire experience in the high-pressure, short-deadline world of publishing.  Homer's composition reveals the narrative conventions of his day. The emotional impact of his drawings derives from Homer's choice of the moment to be represented with all that it implies about the events preceding an d following it.

Photo in-motion: Eadweard Muybridge

Eadweard Muybridge started his reputation in 1867, with photos of Yosemite and San Francisco and became famous for his landscape photographs, which showed the grandeur and expansiveness of the West. The images were published under the pseudonym “Helios.”

Muybridge helped solve the riddle of the horse's gallop.

Most artists painted horses at a trot with one foot always on the ground; and at a full gallop with the front legs extended forward and the hind legs extended to the rear, and all feet off the ground. Muybridge perfected his method of horses in motion, proving that they do have all four hooves off the ground during their running stride.

viva da freaks!

I find that Buzzfeed calls this series "ridiculous monsters."

Let's excuse BF's lack of historical acumen at not mentioning provenance. 

My problem is that BF takes for granted that these "monsters" did not exist. Really?

Take a look at this (some amongst these "freaks" belong in a prominent list! (via the human marvels)*
 

Josephine Clofullia (the so-called "bearded lady of Geneva")

It boils down to a distorted representation of the past, or better, an blidspot for our present. It happens by design, i.e., our "present" antiseptic idea of "normality."

The Swiss manuscript presents a rational treatment of the issue,

Switzerland, 1557

The title reads "Chronicle of Omens and Portents from the beginning of the world up to these our present times," (Switzerland, 1557). The Chronicon is dramatic & naive in its quasi-scientific approach. We are looking at early anthropology! The shift in perception of how to understand these human types changes from 16th century "portents" to 19th century "freaks" (i.e, we find them as curiosities in the circuses of Europe and America). Today's political correctness works in a perverse way: nowadays we don't call these people "freaks" (in fact, we don't have a word for them). And yet, we think that 16th century illustrators were, as Buzzfeed calls them, "fucked up".   
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*Thanks to J. Tithonus Pednaud's The Human Marvels, a formidable research/site!

Stereogranimator (from New York City Public Library)

(via Design Sponge)

For a gallery of images.

early underwater photography??

underwater photography (1893)

louis boutan is the first underwater photographer (via professor eliot)

photograpy as naturalism (by niepce)

joseph niepce's first photograph from nature (1826)

first there is heliography. what is it?

... during his trials with lithography, Niepce experimented with light-sensitive varnishes and then with images produced in camera, but he was unable to prevent the images from fading. Niépce discovered that he produced his best results while using a solution of bitumen of Judea, which dated back to the ancient Egyptians but continued to be used for making lithographic engravings in the 1800s.

then comes, photography:

In 1822, Niépce successfully made a heliograph from an engraving of Pope Pius VII, which was destroyed during an attempt to copy it some years later. Over the next few years, Niépce experimented with bitumen on pewter or zinc plates that could be inked for printing. His best results came in 1826 with the copying of an engraving of the Cardinal Georges d'Amboise in which Niépce invented the first successful form of photomechanical reproduction.

photo as portrait (not the selfie)

at this early stage photography is the non-selfie. photography means to capture the world.

the magazine (for the working class)

the Penny Magazine, published every saturday from 1832 to 1845, was an illustrated british magazine aimed at the working class. though initially very successful—with a circulation of 200,000 in the first year—it proved too whiggish to appeal to such audience.

CAUTION!

19th century use of titling face to spread "vigilante" racist messages