The advent of balloon travel opened up a new way of seeing the world, and coincided with the invention of an immersive form of entertainment technology, the panorama:
"No longer was the experience of landscape representation mediated by the baroque perspectival constructions of traditional city views. The visitor was invited to encounter the landscape directly. Of course, this was still an image, but every effort was made to support the illusion that the visitor had been transported to the very point from which the image had been captured."
Read the rest by Lily Ford on Public Domain Review
I'm reminded of a huge painting I saw in the d'Orsay museum by Victor Navlet in 1855 : http://www.musee-orsay.fr/fr/collections/catalogue-des-oeuvres/notice.html?nnumid=9130
ReplyDelete