Life before television
Turn off
your flat screen television and get lost in 17th, 18th
and 19th century optical entertainment.
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1. THE PANORAMA
Cinema and television create an illusion of movement by showing a sequence of still images of mostly 24 frames per second. Before cinema was invented, a similar effect was created with another, more cumbersome system. Artists made very wide paintings (sometimes up to several kilometres in length and as high as a present cinema screen) which were attached to two large mechanically driven cylinder-shaped spools. The screen was then slowly rolled up on one side, while being unwound on the other side.
Four screens
Travel was the favourite theme of these moving panoramas: spectators could be taken on a
steamship voyage along the
Nearest to the spectators stood
a horizontal screen displaying the sand and
pebble stones of the railroad track, moving at 300 meters per minute.
Next a vertical screen displaying shrubs, moving at a
speed of 120 meters per minutes. Behind that was a larger screen
exposing the cities and houses nearby the railway, moving at 40 meters
per
minute. The last and largest screen stood 8 meters high and moved
slowly at only 5
meters a minute, presenting the sky, mountains, woods, clouds and
villages and cities further away.
To complement the experience, spectators were
seated in mock train carriages while they watched
the panorama. The ‘trainride’, accompanied by sound-effects and a
narrative explaining what was seen – lasted 45 minutes. In another
panorama simulating a boat ride, the passengers were also moved up and
down in a replica of a steamboat to imitate the effects of the waves
(this was also called a mareorama, see picture above). The experience
was completed with steam whistles, smoke and wind effects.
A moving panorama ("The herioc life and career of Garibaldi") was digitalized at high resolution and can be seen on the internet (part 1 & part 2 & the introduction to the project).
Circular panoramas
Panoramas
have a deeper history than the present-day cinema. They experienced the
height of their popularity in the 1850s and maintained being the
preferred mass medium until the
beginning of the 20th century. Moving panoramas evolved out of
circular panoramas, which were patented in 1787 in the
These circular panoramas were shown in a place for one season and
then moved around the country and around the globe, meaning that they were seen by hundreds of thousands of people.
The most popular showings were the depiction of famous (and mostly recent)
battles. Other included themes were landscapes, cityscapes, biblical scenes or gardens (a panorama of Versailles was the first to be shown in the
Team work
The panorama combined art and technological innovation to produce a
popular spectacle. It was
the cinema of its time, providing spectators with an outlet for
escapism, a chance to travel to exotic lands and times. Panoramas
demanded a
large initial investment, which was reimbursed by entrance fees. Just
as on movie sets it took a large team of people to put a panorama
together. Over approximately one year, the requirements for the making
of a panorama were as follows: investigating the scene (by travel),
making sketches, and of course the painting itself.
Painting a circular panorama
was quite a challenge. The correct usage of perspective was imperative
and the use of colours
had to be perfect to maintain the illusion from every angle. Just as
with moving panoramas, the illusion of circular panoramas was
heightened by additional effects. The spectators could not see the top
or bottom of the painting. They were standing underneath a shelter, and on the floor between the public platform and the
painting itself objects were placed – like trenches, weapons, helmets and cannons in the case of a battle.
These objects were partly painted and partly real, which further heightened the illusion of being a part of the place projected (which is shown very well in this - modern - egyptian panorama above). Light effects and a soundtrack completed the illusion. Before arriving at the scene, the spectators went through a darkened, disorienting corridor.
Souvenirs
Small reproductions of
panoramas were sold as souvenirs, a gesture similar to the buying of a dvd after
seeing the movie on a cinema screen.
(Panorama Big Sur, California, see large image on the website)
Cut to pieces
Because of their size, most panorama paintings were destroyed or cut into pieces which were then sold to collectors. The website www.panoramapainting.com gives an overview of all remaining panoramas worldwide, stored in musea or still on display, and directs you to the websites for more information. Some panoramas can be seen online.
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2. THE STEREOSCOPE
In the 20th century, television became the preferred mass medium for entertainment, education and information. Before this, in the 19th century, that role was fulfilled by the stereoscope, a device that enabled two-dimensional images to be transformed into three-dimensional views. For us, the stereoscope seems nothing more than the ancestor of the View Master, a children's toy that is still being sold today. However, in the 1800s, the enormously popular stereoscope occupied a central role in every western household. A large diversity of the product was available: from handheld devices over table models to large saloon floor models for the whole family, resembling a television set.
The stereoscope projects the illusion of depth by showing two pictures of the same scene or object next to each other, both taken from a slightly different angle (a horizontal difference of about 6 centimetres, the distance between two human eyes). Experienced observers can enjoy the stereoscopic effect without a viewer, with hard concentration and focus. Some stereoviews change their appearance in the presence of strong background light.
The device was thought of in the 1830s and arrived on the market in
1851. At first, stereoscopic views were drawn by hand, but it was with
the
incorporation of photographs that the technology really took off,
because it made the production much easier and faster.
Stereoview collections
Popular themes were landscapes, buildings, monuments, nudes (both male and female), war scenes, scientific subjects and exotic places. Two large stereoview collections can be found here (divided by theme) and here (divided by country). Links to all the databases of stereoviews on the internet are available here.
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3. THE MAGIC LANTERN
The magic lantern is a most intriguing pre-cinema device. Similar to a present-day slide projector it enlarges projections from smaller transparant slides (painted or photographed). In its simplest form, the fantascope fulfilled the same role as the stereoscope, sharing with people stories, things and places they had never seen or heard of before. For its time, the magic lantern achieved a level of technology that has yet to be matched by today's standards.
The magic lantern was invented in mid 17th century and has an odd appearance of which many variations exist. In essence, it comprises of a lightproof box except for a peephole on which a lens is mounted. The top of the box has a roof-like appearance with a tube resembling a chimney, through which the smoke and heat of the light source (candles or oil lamps - later on electric sources were used) can escape. Inside the box there is a parabolic mirror to reflect the light. People owned magic laterns, but just as was the case with peepshows, showmen travelled from place to place to give performances.
(Slide taken from The Theatre Collection - they have a few hundreds more)
Opaque objects
Other (later) types of magic lanterns did not project transparant slides but two-dimensional opaque images such as engravings, drawings, pages of books, pictures and even three-dimensional objects like puppets, skulls, coins or leaves. These devices are called episcopes and epidiascopes (the latter is the name for a magic lantern that can project both transparent slides as well as opaque objects). An intense light, placed inside the box, illuminates the object from both sides. The objects are hung upside down in the box and appear upright on the wall or the screen, in their original colour and texture.
Phantasmagoria
Eventually, the magic lantern did more than just project images on a wall. By sliding two images over each other, effects could be obtained, like a sleeping man swallowing rats. Parts of 3D puppets were made movable with steel wire tied together. To make the object move on the screen, the mechanism was being operated from outside the box. But the most remarkable use of the magic lantern appeared with the so-called Phantasmagoria shows. These were the late 18th century ancestor of the horror movie (more information here, here and here). For these shows, the magic lantern was mounted on wheels, which made it look like a film camera. The phantascope (or fantascope), as was called this type of magic lantern, had several capacities of a movie camera - one of which was auto-focus.
Often, skeletons, demons, ghosts and witches were projected on a translucent screen or a smoke screen between the phantascope and the spectators. By rolling the device forwards and backwards, the image on the wall became smaller or bigger, giving the spectators the illusion that the ghost was attacking them or moving away and vanishing. The showmen sometimes used several projectors simultaneously, for projecting several moving ghosts. Later on, optical effects using mirrors were added, which made ghosts appear in all places. Combined with freightening sounds and smoke these effects this scared many people half to death.
Ombre Blanche
Another technique of the phantasmagoria was the “Ombre Blanche”
or white shadow, the
opposite of the better known shadow play. This could be considered the
low-tech variant of the phantascope, since all that was needed was a
peep box without a lens and a very faint light source like a birtday
candle. Yet here, several ghosts in different colours could be moving
through a darkened room, without complex actions or mechanical
constructions.
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4. THE PEEPSHOW
The peepshow could be described as the first modern multimedia gadget. It is a box with an eyehole, through which the
spectator can see a miniature scene, painted or constructed in
perspective (or a combination of both). Both the stereoscope and the magic lantern
evolved out of the peepshow, which was invented around 1660 and had an
even earlier ancestor in the 13th century (the perspective views of
Leon Battista Alberti).
An exaggerated
perspective, effective use of colour and light effects and (sometimes)
a simple lens create the illusion of depth. Light is externally
supplied by the sun or the moon, or from candles placed inside the
wooden box. All this creates a very realistic effect, which would amaze
even 21st century high-tech media addicts. A peepshow sometimes had
several eyeholes (like the early Dutch box above), enabling more people
to watch the scene at the same time. It could be a small, portable
device, or a larger table or floor model. The first televisions in the
20th century used peeping - the simple act of gazing through an eyehole.
(Picture peepbox & illustration taken from Early Visual Media - there are more illustrations to find, as well as detailed pictures from the structure of the wooden peepshow)
(Picture taken from the Australian Centre for the Moving Image) Showmen
Peepshows were run by showmen travelling from village to village. Sometimes, they manipulated parts of the scene from the outside while the spectators were watching. In most countries today, the peepshow is mainly used in an erotic context. However, in some places the function of the original peepshow is still prevalent. The picture below shows a peepshow in China, with 5 eyeholes.
It will not be long before the Chinese follow suit and will also swap all their ancient multimedia for a flat screen television and a game-console. The problem lies in the world not being able to find an efficient energy source able to power all our high-tech 21st century gadgets, as unfortunately candles or moonlight just don't cut it anymore.
© Kris De Decker (edited by Shameez Joubert)
Related articles :
Low-tech photography : the pinhole camera and the camera obscura
Email in the 18th century : the surprising speed of the optical telegraph
Computing without electricity : mechanical calculators
Unplugged computergames : a new generation of board games
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