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A Visual Essay Recalls the Latin Alphabet's Pictorial Past
The Latin alphabet's letter A can be traced back to an Egyptian hieroglyph of an ox head; the letter M is believed to have its origins in a hieroglyph representing water.
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Unraveling the Gendered History of Hypnotism
Hypnosis straddles the line between science and entertainment, encompassing both the therapeutic practice of hypnotherapy and performative stage acts.
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Among the Bliss Ninnies: Photos of Today’s Neo-Hippie Culture
In 1967, Chicago-based photojournalist Steve Schapiro became famous for chronicling The Hippie in the Haight.
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The Mysterious Folk Art of America's Secret Societies
Almost every US town has one: that mysterious Masonic lodge with its borrowed Egyptian or Greek details, arcane symbols, and windows and doors that rarely open.
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Before Google Earth: A Rare Cartographic Compendium From Renaissance Europe
Long before the ubiquity of Google Maps, these colorful engravings, produced between 1572 and 1617, comprised the world's most accurate and elaborate collection of urban cartography ever made.
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The Design Nostalgia of Japan's Train Station Stamps
Railroad Station Stamp Designs captures the scope and evolution of these unique tokens, capturing the uniqueness of place through single small pictures.
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The Men Behind MoMA’s Taste for Modernist Design
Long before it became a cultural juggernaut, MoMA was helmed by a young intellectual named Alfred H. Barr Jr. who, from 1929 to 1934, worked in close collaboration with architect Philip Johnson to make the museum an influential platform for modernism.
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Gruesome and Surreal Surgical Illustrations from the 15th–19th Centuries
In 1811, nearly four decades before the advent of anesthesia, the English novelist Fanny Burney underwent a mastectomy for breast cancer.
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Why Japan's Futuristic Micro-Homes Are So Popular
Like in many of the world's most densely populated nations, real estate in Japan is tough to come by.
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Heavy Metal Headbangers Frozen in Time
With hair flying and faces contorted in expressions between joy and agony, the heavy metal fans captured by Danish photographer Jacob Ehrbahn are a frenzy of movement in saturated color.
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A Book of Art and Essays Explores Psychedelics as a Spiritual Technology
The intersections between Eastern philosophy and psychedelic drugs are explored in Zig Zag Zen, a newly expanded edition of an anthology of essays, interviews, and artwork.
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A Photographer Captures the Sweet Strangeness of His Family’s Everyday Life
Like a breath of fresh air, Dutch photographer Maurice van Es’s now will not be with us forever provides a welcome alternative to the haze of apathy, distrust, and sarcasm that permeate contemporary media and visual culture.