A ‘proper point of view’: The panorama and some of its early media iterations
2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 9; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/17460654.2011.601165
ISSN1746-0662
Autores Tópico(s)Historical Art and Culture Studies
ResumoAbstract The panorama entered the world not as a visual format but as a claim: to lure viewers into seeing in a particular way. Robert Barker’s 1787 patent for a 360-degree painting of ‘nature at a glance’ (Nature à Coup d’Oeil) emphasized the construction of a ‘proper point of view’ as a means of making the viewer ‘feel as if really on the spot’. This situating strategy would, over the following centuries, take many forms within the world of the painted panorama and its photographic, magic lantern, and cinematic counterparts. This essay charts some of the unexpected twists and turns of this strategy, exploring among others the moving panorama (both as a parallel development to the cinematic moving picture and as deployed by the film medium as a background to suggest movement) and the relations between the spatial promise of the late nineteenth-century stereoscope and that most populous of early motion picture titles, the panorama. The essay focuses on changing technologies and strategies for achieving Barker’s initial goals, while attending to the implications for the viewer. Drawing from the observations of scholars as diverse as Bentham, Foucault, and Crary, the essay uses the various iterations of the panorama to explore the implications of a particularly rich strand of technologies of seeing. Keywords: panoramaearly filmactualitiesstereoscoperegimes of seeing Acknowledgements Portions of this article draw upon my previously published ‘Panoramic visions: Stasis, movement, and the redefinition of the panorama’ in L. Quaresima, A. Raengo, L. Vichi, eds., La nascita dei generi cinematografici [The birth of film genres] (Udine: Forum, 1999): 125–33. Notes 1. Around the world in 360° (Panorama Mesdag website), http://www.panoramamesdag.nl/index.php?page=/ex-iqtvra_en.php. 2. Barker initially called his device La Nature à Coup d’Oeil [Nature at a glance], a term that might indeed suggest the strategy deployed by contemporary digital panoramas which enable all 360 degrees to be seen from one position. But the details of his patent make clear that this was not his intent, and his decision to rename the device ‘panorama’ shortly after filing suggests the more appropriate sense. 3. Painted by Hendrik Willem Mesdag, a prominent member of the Dutch ‘Haagse School’, the scene portrays the beach at Scheveningen a short distance away. Over 360 feet long and 42 feet high, the Mesdag Panorama remains a popular tourist attraction. 4. The International Quick Time Virtual Reality Association (www.iqtvra.org) has about 300 panoramic photographer members throughout the world. Their stated interest is creating interactive panoramas and object movies for the computer. Their exhibit at the Mesdag panorama was held from July to September 2003. 5. ‘Specification of the patent granted to Mr. RoBERT BARKER,’ The Repertory of Arts and Manufactures: Consisting of Original Communications, Specifications of Patent Inventions, and Selections of Useful Practical Papers From the Transactions of the Philosophical Societies of All Nations, &c. &c., Vol IV (London: Printer for the Proprietors, 1796), 165–7. 6. The etymology of panorama is the source of some confusion, and I define the term here as ‘complete view’ by relying on the ancient Greek pan (all, complete) plus the noun horama (spectacle); see also Aristotle, de Anima, 428 a. 16: [to] oram-a-atos, ‘that which is seen’, visible object; and Aristotle Ethica Nicomachea, 1173 b. 18: sight, spectacle; and Xenophon Cyrenaica, 3.3.66: vision during sleep, dream. One can also find a related verb form that can be translated as ‘to see’, and scholars such as Angela Miller have opted for this latter approach, translating panorama as ‘all-seeing’ (Miller Citation1996, 35). This seems to me to create confusion between the neologism panorama and the ancient word panoptes (Zeus is ‘panoptes’ or all-seeing [from the verb; ‘opsomai‘]). To translate both panorama and panopticon as ‘all-seeing’ elides a crucial distinction between the two; see Liddell & Scott, Greek–English Lexicon, new ed., with revised supplement by Jones et al. (Oxford 1925, 1940; Supplement: E.A. Barber et al., Oxford 1968). 7. Thanks to Frank Kessler for pointing out the debate in Cinémathèque between Philippe Dubois and Michel Frizot regarding the transformation of panoramic practice and the shift from painted to photographic to filmed panoramas. This debate further attests to the slow morphing of practice and terminology in the last decades of the nineteenth century (see. Dubois Citation1993; Frizot Citation1994). 8. This mapping strategy can be traced back at least to fourth-century maps of the Roman road network, as exemplified by the fourth-century Tabula Peutingeriana (which maps a road running from Spain to India, mixing elements of landscape with lines representing the roads; the format is 682 cm long and 34 cm wide). 9. Robert Barker, Edinburgh Evening Courant, 29 December 1787, cited in B. Wilcox, ‘Unlimiting the bounds of painting’ (Hyde Citation1988, 21). The material on Barker in this section derives from Wilcox’s article; see also Kunst-und Ausstellungshalle der BRD (Citation1993). 10. Foucault mentions this link (Citation1979/1975, 317 n. 4). 11. Sensation and Sensibility: Viewing Gainsborough’s ‘Cottage Door’. Huntington Art Gallery, Yale University, http://www.huntington.org/ArtDiv/CottageDoor2006/CottageDoor2006.html. 12. Gunning’s notion has been subject to considerable development over the years. 13. Unfortunately, the Cinéorama was reportedly closed after three days because of safety concerns due to the extreme heat build-up in the projection space below the gondola’s floor. MacGowan (Citation1965); The Panoramas of the Paris Exposition (Citation1900). 14. Wikipedia, Trans-Siberian Railway Panorama (accessed 10 June 2006); see also Comment Citation1999, 74. According to Alice Guy-Blaché, a film was also made as part of the exhibit, but today there remains no evidence of its existence. 15. Finally fully completed in 1903, the Railway was shown at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri. George Hale, from neighbouring Kansas City, Missouri, exhibited his far less elaborate train-mounted, cinema-based entertainment (Hale’s Tours of the World) at the same exhibition. Pyasetsky’s panoramic painting still exists; in 2004, the Hermitage Museum announced plans to restore, document, and exhibit it across a variety of platforms (http://www.hermitage.museum.ru/html_En/11/2004/hm11_1_141.html). 16. I wish to thank Frank Kessler for bringing this to my attention. 17. Frequently described as having disappeared by the turn of the century, several moving panoramas have survived into the present. Carnegie Institute’s Museum of Natural History (Pittsburgh, PA, USA), for example, displayed one through the 1960s that portrayed prehistoric flora and fauna. 18. See for example, the debate between P. Dubois and M. Frizot (Dubois Citation1993; Frizot Citation1994). 19. Some regional Dutch television stations include a program that essentially constitutes a ‘phantom car ride’. The camera shoots through the front window of a car as it winds its way through back streets and country roads, providing a seamless penetration of familiar spaces.
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