a selection of images, scanned and collected by the ASIFA Animation Archive, from the book ‘As I See‘ by Ukrainian-born illustrator Boris Artzybasheff (1899-1965).
A set called ‘Diablerie’, inspired by the politics and actions of World War 2 and after-events, had this intro…

“Let’s sing hosannas to men this day, for theirs is the triumph of wit! In their long search for better tools and weapons, men at last have found the way of locking a pinch of cosmic force in a sheath of silver-white metal… as well as the means for making it go boom. Any time they wish, or think they must, men can touch off an orgasmic flash, making the oceans boil and seethe with fire, making the soil rise up in crimson dust… Perhaps after the cloud drifts thrice around it, the earth will emerge once more free of living things… In the hush of night this comely planet will go on waltzing in its ordained orbit until God awakens from His sleep and resolves it back to the primordial elements.

I try to shake this thought off; it may be that a healthy planet should have no more life upon it than a well-kept dog has fleas; but what posesses the flea to concoct its own flea powder?”

link to the ASIFA-Hollywood archive page

Also of interest, a couple more collections…
Machinalia - a surreal tribute to 20th century industrialization
Neurotica - neuroses, in his visual style…

Discovered by the Allied forces in the closing months of WW2, this German engineered stealth jet fighter aircraft had been well into development.

A team of modern aircraft engineers from Northrop Grumman constructed a full scale replica of the aircraft with 1940’s materials in order to test the stealth technology of the time.

After an expenditure of about $250,000 and 2,500 man-hours Northrop’s Ho-229 replica was tested at the company’s classified radar cross-section (RCS) test range at Tejon, California, where it was placed on a 50-foot articulating pole and exposed to electromagnetic energy sources from various angles, duplicating the same three frequences used by the Chain Home radar network of the British in the early 1940s. RCS testing showed that an Ho-229 approaching the English Coast from France flying at 550 mph at 50 to 100 feet above the water would not have been visible to Chain Home radar, while a Bf 109 or Fw 190 was visible up to 80 miles away

link to National Geographic article

link to Alex Broeckel Concept Art and Illustration

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illustrations from the ‘MacKinney Collection of Medieval Medical Illustrations’

link UNC University Library

link to Kevin Bauman Photography

French portrait artist Étienne Léopold Trouvelot turned his attention to celestial objects with these studies - from 1878 to 1880

Frenchman Étienne Léopold Trouvelot (1827–1895) was primarily a portrait artist when he arrived in Massachusetts in 1852. During the following 30 years that he remained in America his amateur passion for science would ensure a legacy that straddles both fame and infamy.
Trouvelot turned his attention to the stars and began illustrating celestial phenomena. His drawings were so good that the Director of Harvard College Observatory put Trouvelot on staff where he gained access to their powerful telescope.

link to bibliodyssey

from strangemaps …

As we’ve all learned in school, 70% of the Earth’s surface is covered by water, only 30% is solid ground. What if everything was reversed? What if every land mass was a body of water, and vice versa?

This map explores that question, and it is fantastic in at least three definitions of that word: fanciful, implausible and marvelous. The interior of China is marked by a spouting whale, a sailboat ploughs the waves of the Brazilian Ocean, a school of fish traverse the watery wastes of Siberia, large cities dominate places rarely frequented by people in this universe…

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A set of six propaganda posters depicting the ‘complainers’

The posters went out with a late 1941 issue of a newsletter for propagandists, giving them detailed guidance on how to prepare for the campaign, which was aimed at complainers and those who failed to realize the greatness of life in Nazi Germany. Each poster would hang for two weeks, so the whole campaign ran three months. Newspapers promoted it, and those attending movie theaters saw slides of the posters before the film began. The three area breweries even produced beer coasters with the caricatures on them. The goal was to make everyone aware of the two unpleasant central figures in the campaign, and encourage them to behave differently: “Wherever such a character surfaces, the goal is that party members or other citizens present will refer to Herr Semperer or Frau Keppelmeier and bring ridicule down on them.”

The poem runs:

Frau Keppelmeier, as one can see,
Is deeply troubled as can be.
Herr Lemperer, on the other hand,
Eagerly hears the rumor she tells.

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Also, in the parent directory, a great collection of propaganda posters - 1933 / 1945….

link