On March 30th and 31st, the Yale Center for British Art will be sponsoring a sympotisum entitled New Perspectives on the Panorama. As we discussed in class on Thursday, the panorama is another of the visual spectacles that became popular in the 19th century.
One of the symposium moderators has written an excellent book that includes one chapter focusing on a range of visual spectacles popular in 19th-century France (panoramas, phantasmagoria, wax museums, etc.): Maurice Samuels, The Spectacular Past: Popular History and the Novel in Nineteenth-Century France (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004).
On the history of panoramas, see: Stephan Oettermann, The Panorama: History of a Mass Medium (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press/Zone Books, 1997).
To see a 360-degree view of the Mesdag Panorama in The Hague (one of the few remaining panoramas, and the one that Kate mentioned in class) click here.
If you are interested more generally in changing conceptions and technology of vision in the 19th century, see the seminal book: Jonathan Crary, Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the 19th Century (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992); as well as Crary’s more recent publication: Suspensions of Perception: Attention, Spectacle, and Modern Culture (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001).
2 responses so far ↓
Sung // March 20, 2007 at 9:55 pm
I was at MMA taday and realized that there is a Panorama in American Wing (i have to say not very effective one), however, it’s a view of the garden of Versaille. I have seen it before and never realized that it was the view of Versaille. why is it there in American Wing?
Laura A // March 21, 2007 at 10:44 am
Glad you noticed this! This panorama was painted by an American who studied in France named John Vanderlyn, who intended to exhibit it in NYC in the early19th century. Although it is a European subject, the artist and intended site were American….hence the American wing location. To find out more click on:
http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/viewOne.asp?dep=2&viewmode=0&item=52.184