and what was a
|
'Panorama' [click here]
The original 'Panorama' - the word was apparently created for this structure in the late 18th century - was a permanent building containing a 360-degree painting on the wall of a circular gallery. It does not appear that Jamaica ever had one of these, but it did see a number of what are referred to as 'moving panoramas' - or by some, it seems, as 'padoramas'!
|
Moving Panoramas -
'Panoramas had been popular in the United States since the late eighteenth-century, when artists and promoters began offering travelogues to the Holy Land or down the Mississippi through a series of paintings on a canvas hundreds of feet long and several yards high that slowly scrolled from one reel to another. The Civil War inspired northern and southern entrepreneurs to create panoramas with patriotic, technical-sounding names for exhibition to audiences throughout the Union and Confederacy. Northerners could see the “Grand Panorama of the War,” the “Polyrama of the War,” “Norton’s Great Panorama of Recent Battles,” the “Diorama and Polopticomarama of the War,” “The Mirror of the Rebellion,” and “A Cosmorama of Battles of the Civil War.” Southerners could view Burton’s “Southern Moving Dioramic Panorama,” “The Grand Panopticon Magicale of the War and Automaton Dramatique,” and Lee Mallory’s “Pantechnoptemon.” A number of proprietors updated their exhibitions with additional battle scenes as the war progressed. Most panoramas included a spoken narration, while many were accompanied by music. The score to Stanley & Conant’s “Polemorama” featured “the Rattle of Musketry—the Booming of Cannon, mingled with the tumultuous noise of the deadly conflict.” Life-sized or scale models of soldiers and ships stood or lay before the moving pictures, theatrical explosions and smoke raised the excitement level, and the strategic use of front- and back-lighting could change scenes from night to day or from peaceful reveries to violent confrontations before the audience’s eyes.'
History in a Box: Milton Bradley’s Myriopticon
James Marten
From: The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth
Volume 2, Number 1, Winter 2009
History in a Box: Milton Bradley’s Myriopticon
James Marten
From: The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth
Volume 2, Number 1, Winter 2009
The first examples, so far found, of panoramas in Jamaica appear in the 1870s, though almost certainly they had been part of the entertainment scene much earlier than that.
- the exhibition was carrying the 'Moving Panorama" around the U.S.A. as well; clearly this was technology designed to be portable.
Aitchison Daily Patriot (Kansas) April 16, 1873
James Gall had mini-'Moving Panoramas' for sale over the Christmas season in 1875-6 -
- possibly referring to a toy model something like this?
. . . . a part of the entertainment scene into the '80s
. . . . and still going strong into the '90s
Punch/London Charivari, 1849 - on the 'Panorama Mania'.
Over a decade or two I have done quite a bit of research on the developing image technologies as they occurred in Jamaica, and had come to think that the supposedly revolutionary nature of the arrival of the 'moving pictures' in the 1890s has been much exaggerated - the various technologies of the 19th century had well prepared audiences for the development of the 'movies' which must have seemed just the expected next step. So I was pleased to read the opinion of an expert in the field -
'The early history of cinema is more complex and contradictory than its founding myth suggests and cannot be reduced to a singular moment, a linear development, or even a single place, such as the city of Paris. Audiences had long enjoyed the projection of images onto the screen at private gatherings and public fairs for entertainment and education, for example by means of the magic lantern, which was invented in the seventeenth century and lasted throughout the nineteenth century, until photography was integrated into its use (Monaco 73). The diorama was also a still and flat projection, but lighting and a translucent canvas made it possible to change the picture, for example from day to night.
There were other presentations of moving images that captured audiences. Throughout the nineteenth century, the mechanical organization of still photographs in different pre-filmic cinematic attractions created the illusion of movement. The zoetrope, for example, evoked the perception of motion when photos of consecutive movements were pasted inside a wheel and spun around. The panorama, which surrounded the spectator with projected images, developed into the padorama, the moving panorama. For example, in 1834 a padorama enabled spectators seated in carriages to visually enjoy parts of the Manchester–Liverpool railway, experiencing the pleasure of the simulated train ride long before film was invented. Clarke and Doel believe that by the end of the 1880s “animated photography was not only widely anticipated, but effectively accomplished" ' Cities and Cinema, Barbara Mennel, 2008 |