Dead
Media | 0.01-02.0 | 02.1-04.0
| 04.1-06.0 | 06.1-08.0 |
08.1-10.0 | 10.1-12.0 |
Subject: Dead Media Working Note 08.8
Dead medium: the Panorama
From: bruces_AT_well.com (Bruce Sterling)
Source: The Panorama Phenomenon: Mesdag Panorama 1881-
1981
Published by the Foundation for the Preservation of the
Centenarian Mesdag Panorama (September 1981)
Den Haag, Holland
editor Evelyn J. Fruitema
written by Paul A. Zoetmulder
Mesdag Panorama, Zeestraat 65b, 2518AA The Hague
(Netherlands)
pages 18-19
"Quite simply, the secret of the panorama lies in the
elimination of the possibility to compare the work of art
with the reality outside, by taking away *all* boundaries
which remind the spectator that he is observing a separate
object within his total visual field. Not without reason
the panorama used to be called the 'all-view' or 'the
picture without boundaries.' Barker's patent achieved
this effect by incapsulating the spectator inside a *total
view.*
"The circular canvas envelops him like a cylinder.
When he glances upward, the light source and the top edge
of the picture remain hidden from view by an umbrella-
like roof over the platform (the so-called *velum*), and
at the bottom of the picture his view is blocked by a
cloth or another kind of foreground, placed between the
balustrade and the lower edge of the painting.
"By means of these provisions the spectator is
deprived of the possibility of comparison. He can no
longer correctly judge size and distance. He only sees
the objects on the painting surrounding him in their
relative proportions (...) and all this lead the spectator
to experience his fictitious surroundings as a reality.
This technique, invented by Barker, was a complete novelty
at the time, and its amazing effect was the cause of the
enormous success scored by the panorama during more than a
hundred years.
"It goes without saying that in the course of time
the optical effects have been further doctored. (...) The
corridor leading from below to the platform was therefore
darkened, so that the visitor, whose eye had been adapted
to this darkness, gets caught unprepared by the fully lit
panorama picture (...) A winding staircase was mostly
chosen for entering the higher situated platform with the
preconceived intention of making the visitor lose his
bearings.
"Numerous experiments were necessary to establish how
the spectator should be fitted into the whole, and the
distance to be allowed between the platform and the
canvas. The lighting of the canvas via the roof dome = an
essential element of panorama technique = was no simple
matter. (...) Experiments were made with smoked glass,
with 'skirts' of cloth encircling the light dome, with
transversely screened sheets, all this with the aim of
making the light from above shine *from* the picture by
reflection. (...)
"It was a certain Colonel Langlois who broke new
ground by using the horizontal space between the platform
and canvas to perfect still further the optical illusion.
He 'filled' this space with a setting of tri-dimensional
objects which constituted integrating parts of the
display. Without this '*faux-terrain*,' the foreground-
setting, including the objects, the so-called '*attrapes*'
(hoaxes), a panorama later on was no longer a real
panorama. Gradually this technique was further refined to
the extent that the tri-dimensional attrapes faded
perfectly into the bi-dimensional canvas, thus creating a
very realistic effect."
Dead
Media | 0.01-02.0 | 02.1-04.0
| 04.1-06.0 | 06.1-08.0 |
08.1-10.0 | 10.1-12.0 |