Blue Impressions

Anna Atkins’ Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions was published in 1843 – the first book to be illustrated with photographs

Images courtesy of the Trustees of the Natural History Museum

For Ernest, the cyanotype is the perfect embodiment of art and science: a moment frozen in light and shadow, conjured by chemicals in that beautiful cyan blue. While it was Sir John Herschel who developed the cyanotype method, an acquaintance of his, Anna Atkins, put the technique to innovative use – to create blueprints of her vast collection of botanical specimens. This she collated in her 1843 book, Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, the first book to be illustrated with photographs.

Anna was already an accomplished illustrator – a hobby considered suitably genteel for women of that period – but being the daughter of a respected scientist at the British Museum opened doors to her that would otherwise have remained shut, allowing her to mix in scientific circles and advance her study of British plants. Even by today’s standards her cyanotype impressions – the labels handwritten by Anna – are so detailed and intricate, you can distinguish one species from the next.

Anna Atkins’ cyanotypes are part of the Natural History Museum’s collection; nhm.ac.uk

How to lay and track a scout trail

Oh, for the halcyon days of scout camp. Living unwashed in a field for a week, playing with knives and fire, trading contraband, subsisting on fry-ups and E-numbers. Veterans of this wholesome experience will probably also have enjoyed the classic scouting game of tracking a trail, where you try to find your way to a secret location by following improvised symbols made from natural materials like twigs and stones.

Directions
Arrows constructed out of sticks are the most helpful way to give directions, but less fun for this same reason. Subtler tactics include tying a tuft of grass to point the right way, or placing one rock on top of another then using a third rock to indicate direction. This latter arrangement is particularly difficult to distinguish from any old pile of stones, and has been responsible for many a wild goose chase.

Help and hazards
Show-offs have a wider range of symbols at their disposal, including zig- zags to indicate water, or parallel lines for an obstacle. A generous scout might leave a cache or message for friends on their trail, marked by a square with an arrow coming off it. Sticks or stones placed inside the square indicate the number of paces to the drop – possibly a melted Mars bar or a dog-eared Point Horror sealed up in a sandwich bag.

Gone home
A dot in a circle means that the scout has finished laying his trail and ‘gone home’, perhaps pausing to enjoy a crafty cig while his companions are hopelessly lost in the woods. This symbol has an extra poignancy for scouters, since it’s also a euphemism for death. To this day, if you get an email about an old scout leader with ‘gone home’ in the subject line, it means their trail is at an end.

Words and illustrations by Joly Braime

A new exhibition celebrating Ray Harryhausen: titan of cinema

Film special effects master Ray Harryhausen elevated stop motion animation to an art form during the 1950s to 1980s. For the first time, highlights from Ray’s collection will be showcased as part of the largest and widest-ranging exhibition of his work ever seen, with newly restored and previously unseen material from his incredible archive

Skeleton models from Jason and the Argonauts (1963); photo by Sam Drake, courtesy of the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation

An immersive exhibition on the pioneering and unparalleled work of Ray Harryhausen (1920-2013), the cinematic titan whose movies shaped the face of modern cinema, will be coming to the National Galleries of Scotland (NGS) this Autumn, as part of the late filmmaker’s centenary celebrations.

Titan of Cinema will be the largest and most comprehensive exhibition ever of the art of the legendary trailblazer Harryhausen, who elevated stop-motion animation to an art form between the 1950s-1980s, and whose exhilarating movies inspired a generation of the world’s greatest living filmmakers, among them Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Sir Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro.

The exhibition, originally scheduled for May 2020 but rescheduled due to current events, is now open with an extended run until September 2021. Visitors can secure their tickets via a new online booking system up to three months in advance. 

Titan of Cinema will showcase the original models that were miraculously brought to life on screen by Harryhausen’s mastery of stop-frame animation, such as the iconic skeletons from Jason and the Argonauts (1963), the Cyclops from his highly-influential Sinbad series, and his trademark UFOs from 1956’s Earth vs the Flying Saucers. The models shown will include those which would later inspire movies such as Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Pan’s Labyrinth and Mars Attacks!

Also on display will be the young Harryhausen’s very first models, including a marionette inspired by the gorilla from King Kong, conceived by the film’s special effects supervisor Willis O’Brien, and artwork from Mighty Joe Young, the first film that Harryhausen and O’Brien worked on together, and the movie which effectively launched Harryhausen’s career.

Californian-born Harryhausen was massively inspired by the work of Willis O’Brien after seeing King Kong at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood in 1933. As a teenage boy, he went to see the film 33 times. Soon after, he was experimenting with models and stop-motion animation in his backyard, and was later mentored by O’Brien.

Titan of Cinema tells the story of how this young boy became so enraptured by O’Brien’s special effects , he devoted his entire life to filmmaking, invented ingenious techniques, created unforgettable cinematic moments, became what Aardman Animations’ Peter Lord described as a, “one-man industry” and inspired many of the world’s greatest movie-makers.

Ray Harryhausen: Titan of Cinema | 24 October 2020 — 5 September 2021 | 73 Belford Road, Edinburgh, EH4 3DS | Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Modern Two)
| 0131 624 6200 | nationalgalleries.org | Tickets: £12-14 (concessions available)

Above images by Sam Drake, courtesy of the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation

A glossary of fog

Lose yourself in a world of creeping sea mist and mysterious booming sounds, but beware the luring ‘white women’

Images by Laura Pashby

niflheim

Means ‘World of Fog’ and is one of the Nine Worlds of Norse mythology.

larry

A land fog that moves down the estuary at Teignmouth, as distinguished from a sea fog moving up the river.

camanchaca

A creeping fog that forms on the coast of Chile, then moves inland in the form of immense cloud banks. In the Atacama desert, one of the driest places on Earth, fog catchers capture water droplets from the fog to irrigate crops.

mistpouffer

A mysterious booming sound that can he heard over the ocean in quiet, foggy weather. Derives from the Dutch mistpoeffer, which translates as ‘fog swelling’.

karl

Yes, San Francisco’s famous fog is named Karl and it has its own Twitter and Instagram accounts.

witte wieven

A low-flowing mist. Translates from Dutch as ‘white women’ – according to local folklore, the ‘white women’ lure people to follow them, who are then lost forever.

pea souper

Also known as the Great Smog of London, this was a severe air-pollution smog that disrupted the city in December 1952, when many homes had coal fires. The particles of soot gave the smog a yellowish tinge, hence the nickname.

roke

An East Yorkshire word for sea fog, believed to derive from the Swedish röka, meaning smoke.

haar

A thick sea fog and fine drizzle that creeps inland from the North Sea to the east coast of Scotland and northeast England

This is an extract from ‘Lure of the Mist’ feature in issue 9 of Ernest Journal, all images by Laura Pashby @circleofpines

Post Office cats

In the mid- 19th century, the Post Office was under attack. At the London Money Order Office, a group of miscreants were destroying money orders and the culprits were evading even the best laid traps. Such trials require imaginative solutions and, in this case, recruitment of a very different breed of staff

“Three cats may be allowed on probation,” permitted Secretary of the Post Office, John Tilley, in response to the pleas of staff under siege from a plague of mice. It was a cut-throat worldin post office employment in the 19th century though, and the newest employees were given a mere six months to prove their worth or face their positions, or provisions, being cut.

Although not the first cats to be found in post offices, they were the first to be added to the payroll. To incentivise the cats in their task, their feed was monitored under Tilley’s strict instructions: “It is important that the cats be not overfed, and I cannot allow more than one shilling a week for their support. They must depend on the mice for the remainder of their emoluments.”

Thankfully, this furry trio of felines were successful in their brief to tackle the rodent population and became the first cats to be officially appointed to post. The first report by Frederic Rowland Jackson, the Controller of the office, details the success of the probation period: “Whether influenced by the secretary’s caution that they would under certain contingencies have diminished rations, or by a laudable zeal for the service and their own characters, cannot be clearly made out, but it is certain that the cat system has answered exceedingly well and that the cats have done their duty very efficiently.”

Within five years their diligent work had earned them a six pence a week increase in their allowance. However, at this point the HR department clearly dropped the ball, as in 1952 it was raised in Parliament to the Assistant Postmaster-General that the cats hadn’t received a pay rise in almost 80 years. His response? “There have been no complaints.”

The most famous post office cat was the esteemed Tibs the Great, faithfully serving Royal Mail HQ for a remarkable 14 years since his birth in 1950. From his lair in the refreshment club in the basement of the building, for a weekly salary of two shillings and six pence, he feasted on the mail-nibbling vermin, tipping the scales at his peak at a remarkable 23 pounds. Tibs dipped his paws into feline fame as well, attending a high-profile Cats and Film Stars party and being selected for a portrait in the book Cockney Cats.

Britain is not alone in its use of cats in post offices, though. New York was home to an abundance of hardworking kitties, 60 of whom had the pleasure of being invited to celebrate the birthday of George Cook, who The New York Times referred to as “the only Superintendent of Federal Cats”. Feasting on liver and kidneys, it is reported that “each helped himself or herself with nature’s implements.”

Not all cat recruitment to the postal service was successful though; the Belgians ran an experiment using cats to deliver mail, but the felines proved to have a less strong homing instinct than their pigeon counterparts and the service was discontinued.

The tradition of the post office cat in the UK was alive and purring until the traditional cloth sacks were replaced by a rodent- proof plastic alternative, and the last officially employed cat, Blackie, passed away in June 1984; the end of a 150-year legacy.

Steph Wetherell loves to write about local food, obscure history and just about anything that piques her fancy. thelocavore.co.uk

This article originally featured in issue 9 of Ernest Journal, on sale now

Issue 9

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Life on the Blasket Islands; our relationship with sea ice; living art and lost boulders with David Nash; whistling languages of the world; defensive measures hiding in plain sight; the bird men of Faroe; a score designed to play for a thousand years; finding wilderness on your doorstep.

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