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Subject: Dead Media Working Note 08.7
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)
(((The justly famed Mesdag Panorama in Den Haag is one of
the best-preserved examples of this dead form of
nineteenth-century virtuality. THE PANORAMA PHENOMENON is
an illustrated English-language historiography associated
with the exhibit, with extensive notes on Hendrik Willem
Mesdag's own panorama of Old Scheveningen, and on the
panorama in general.)))
page 13
"An anecdote has it that in the year 1785 a young Irish
painter in Edinburgh landed in prison because he could
give no satisfaction to his creditors. He was the painter
and draughtsman Robert Barker who, confined in his prison
cell, perhaps through sheer boredom, accidentally invented
the panorama. His extremely uncomfortable quarters were
situated in a basement, and the sparse daylight entered
through a narrow opening in the ceiling, very near the
wall, and so lighted up the vertical wall just underneath.
"Barker will not have had much contact with the world
outside, but once he did receive a letter which gave him
inspiration. He could only decipher the letter by holding
it up against the dimly lit wall. The incidence of light
from above on the letter, observed by Barker in the dark
gaol, apparently presented such a peculiar effect, that it
occurred to the civil debtor to illuminate paintings in a
similar way.(...)
"The patent obtained by him in 1787 defined this
conclusively. The fact that he applied for a patent is
typical. It may well be the first manifestation of the
systematic mixture of art and technology. (...)
"In 1787 he brought an unusual picture to London,
unusual both for its size and form; a large oblong semi-
circular canvas depicting a *View of Edinburgh.* Compared
to his later work, it was only an initial effort to create
what he described a little later in his patent application
as a 'View of Nature' (La Nature a Coup d'Oeil). In the
artistic community his first effort had no success
whatsoever. Sir Joshua Reynolds, the President of the
Royal Society, advised Barker courteously but explicitly
to stop his useless experimenting, an advice completely
disregared by the modernist. His invention was patented
on the 3rd of July 1787.
"He defined his invention: 'An entire new contrivance
or apparatus, which I call La Nature a Coup d'Oeil, for
the purpose of displaying views of Nature at large by Oil
Painting, Fresco, Water Colours, Crayons, or any other
mode of painting or drawing."
"The word *panorama* does not figure in the patent.
(...) It is reported that the term would have been
introduced by a classical scholar among his friends. At
any rate, Barker himself mentions the word *panorama* in
1792 in an advertisement in *The Times.* Henceforth it
quickly became the definite style for a circular picture."
Dead
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08.1-10.0 | 10.1-12.0 |