Figs. 1–23

The illustrative ‘figure’ is becoming obsolete, tied to fixed, printed or printable texts; yet many of these texts cling to their figures when ‘repurposed’ as online ‘content’.

This booklet presents figures found in a single internet search session. A search on a different day or by other eyes would yield a different result. Only figures that actually include ‘Fig.’ and a number embedded within the online graphic file are included. Fig.1’s on one page, Fig.2’s on the next, and so on; arranged so as to cover the entire space of the page which has become their new printed home.

A sense emerges of the dizzying diversity, inconsistency and superfluity of easily-available information, the impossibility of ever making good use of so much ineffable expertise, and a nostalgia for the labour of its countless illustrators and engravers.