OneGuyFromBarlick

DOYLE

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Sherlock Holmes, in several instances, but first in The Sign of the Four(1890) by Arthur Conan Doyle.

One would not want to question Sherlock Holmes’s reputation as a paragon of deductive rationality, but this is surely dangerous advice. The more prudent course would be to say, ‘at this point, you need to conduct new experiments.’ And it’s worth pointing out, coincidentally, that by 1890 Arthur Conan Doyle was already taking great interest in ‘spiritualism,’ in that wondrous hybrid of Victorian hopes and fears that led many people to believe that could one get beyond the material world there would still be much to discover. Holmes’s fascination with that other universe of possibilities continued to intensify and became obsessive. By the time Holmes himself ‘passed’, in 1930, this eccentricity was one of the most remarkable things about him. Thus the New York Times’ 1930 obit on Doyle begins with and keeps returning to his deep interest in other-worldly phenomena. In the obit, Sherlock Holmes gets much less space and the infinitely amenable Dr. Watson and the supernaturally malevolent Moriarty rate no mention whatsoever. So much for obituarists, one might well conclude. Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of the world’s most famous detective (Holmes) and the world’s most consummate villain (Moriarty) was born on May 22, 1859, in Edinburgh. His father and grandfather encouraged him in artistic pursuits, which eventually won out although a passel of rich uncles tried to educate him into a medical career at Stonyhurst and the University of Edinburgh. And indeed Doyle did doctor, at first, but in the intervals between patients he sketched out mystery stories. His first big success (£25!!!) was published in 1888, and very shortly thereafter Holmes, Watson, and Moriarty (and speckled bands and silent hounds) started to disturb the slumbers of the reading public in Britain, America, and beyond. There are many interesting aspects to the Holmes-Doyle saga, but spiritualism and psychic research? These became obsessions after Doyle’s son, Kingsley, died in 1918. Doyle spent the rest of his life and much of his fortune promoting psychic research and psychic stories. It worked in the limited sense that after his death his family expected to hear from him momentarily. And they followed his spiritualist wish to be buried in a standing position, just in case. The local parish church wouldn’t have it (and, anyway, regarded Doyle as a non-believer), so he was buried upright in the garden of his mansion house. Given time, however, the Church of England can forgive almost anything. In 1955, Doyle vertical was disinterred and reburied as Doyle horizontal, next to his second wife, Jean, in All Saints churchyard, Minstead. Myself, I think it’s better to remember Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (MD Edinburgh) as a stout advocate of vaccination, indubitably a this-world medicine. ©

INKJETS

Painting can represent all visible objects with three Colours, Yellow, Red, and Blue; for all other Colours can be comprised of these three, which I call Primitive . . . and a Mixture of these Three Original Colours makes a Black, and all other Colours whatsoever; as I have demonstrated by my invention of Printing Pictures and Figures with their natural Colour. Jakob Christoph le Blon, Coloritto (London and Paris, 1725.

And so, following a long history of technological innovation and the sweated labors of legions of patent lawyers, we have ended up with inkjet printers which, amazing as they may be, are really vehicles for selling small quantities of ink (Cyan, Yellow, and Magenta) at grossly inflated prices. In many cases, two sets of new ink cartridges will cost you more than the inkjet printer itself. Jakob Christoph le Blon understood the economic principle quite well, but living in the monarchical worlds of London and Paris he sought, instead, patent monopolies on the whole process, both in printing and in the dyeing of tapestries. It wasn’t a new idea, and le Blon gives handsome credit to Isaac Newton’s brilliant work with prisms, as well as to generations of painters and portraitists. And so he was duly granted royal patents (first by King George I, in Britain, and then by King Louis XV, in France). I am happy to say that all of le Blon’s London businesses went bust, the victims of patent pirates, plagiarism, and market competition. If he’d stuck only with his inks and dyes, le Blon might have become as rich as Croesus. Jakob Christoph le Blon was born on May 23, 1667, in Frankfurt, Hesse, where his Huguenot ancestors had fled the terrible religious wars and persecutions of 16th-century France. A literate lot, they’d become printers and engravers, specializing in books about travel and engraved printings of works of art. Young Jakob apprenticed in the same trades and moved to Rome where he worked with leading painters (and, indeed, began painting his own miniatures as well as printing the works of others). He also kept informed on the science of coloration, especially (as we know from Coloritto) with Isaac Newton’s famous work on Opticks (1704). He put experience and reading together to produce his scheme for three-color printing, his first real production coming in 1710, in Holland. Thus armed, le Blon moved to London in 1710 to begin angling for a royal patent and a monopoly on the process. Both came from King George I in 1719. There are, I am told, important theoretical differences between Newton’s science of color and Christoph le Blon’s technological adaptations, the former being ‘additive’ and the latter ‘subtractive.’ I don’t entirely understand the point, but that is basically why (if you want to blame anyone for the ridiculous price of inkjet cartridges) you should pick on Christoph le Blon and leave Isaac Newton unstained and unscathed. ©.