"Curioscillotropy" – British Library, Euston Road, London, England

David Normal is a San Francisco painter and animator. Born in 1970, he is the son of Paul Butterfield Blues Band keyboardist, Mark Naftalin. Normal’s "Crossroads of Curiosity" is a suite of murals that extends the notion of a "cabinet of curiosity." The traditional cabinet of curiosity is a rectilinear arrangement of objects displayed in glass cases. Normal’s version seeks to encompass the world in a series of dramatic tableaux featuring provocative juxtapositions of vastly different times, places, and peoples. Normal used Victorian Era book illustrations exclusively from the digitized collection of the British Library to create the artwork. Beginning as black and white collages, the four pieces were developed into 8’ x 20’ lightbox murals that were arrayed around a common base.

"Curioscillotropy" is a portmanteau neologism meaning: "To follow the oscillations of thought." It is derived from the words "Curious," and "Oscillate, combined with the suffix "Tropy." Of all the four Crossroads paintings, Curioscillotropy, is the one that refers most clearly to the theme of "Caravansary." The painting is a Rube Goldberg-like machine that plays with history. It shows the Mongols being expelled from China, the galleon trade ships opening a passage to the East, the Crusades as the foundation of European cultural imperialism, and Maoris’ apocalyptically erupting forth to reap an atavistic revenge. If you look closely, you can also see:

- Patagonian Dancers (androgynous figures posed with blank books. There is an old tradition of soothsayers being androgynous. For example; the oracle of Apollo, "Tiresias", who spent seven years as a woman. Michelangelo depicts the "Sybille de Cummes" with pronouncedly masculine physique. Tehuelche Indians of Patagonia were recounted as giants by European explorers, perhaps giving this illustrator license to depict the woman with such masculine arms. Whatever the case, she slipped readily into her new role as prophetess astride an ichthyosuarus.);
- an Armillary Sphere;
- the Pharos of Alexandria (one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, for centuries one of the tallest man-made structures);
- a Chinese Dragon (emerging implausibly from the arched gate of a Mosque, and processing across the Royal Square of Ispahan to cross a railway bridge across the Firth of Tay, Scotland, the bridge that collapsed tragically in 1879);
- a Mongol Rider;
- a Mummy; and
- the Koh-i-noor