The concept of "panorama", as a vision of the surroundings, can be traced back to the poet Francesco Petrarca, in his letter to Dionigi da San Sepolcro, known as "The ascent to Monte Ventoso" in 1336. (1)
Although in ancient times there were pictorial representations on the four sides of a room, (see Pompeii the triclinium of the Villa of the Mysteries) it is with Robert Barker, the first view of a 360-degree scene. (2)
In 1789 Barker presented a circular painting in London depicting the view of Edinburgh from the hills of Calton Hill and called it 'La nature a coup d'oeil', nature at a glance.
The invention was patented in 1792 and shortly thereafter(3) the term panorama appeared: from the Greek 'παν' (pan), everything, and 'οραμα' (orama), view.
Robert Barker, ‘La nature a coup d’oeil’, Panorama of Edimbourgh from Calton Hills.
Barker's and son's studio in West Square, St. George's Fields, London - 1800
Section of the rotunda
The interior: the vision of Barker's panorama
The realization of the "Panorama des Alpes Bernoises", by Auguste Baud-Bovy in Männlichen in 1891
Barker's rotunda at Leicester Square ,double panorama
The "Panorama des Alpes Bernoises" in Chicago for the 1893 "World's Columbian Exhibition"
From the early nineteenth century, the panorama became a mass phenomenon: several "rotundas" were built, cylindrical architectures designed to contain the paintings, and fashion spread successfully until the early twentieth century.
The Panorama takes on other names, such as cyclorama, cosmorama, diorama, and the 360-degree scene comes alive and enriches with complex mechanisms to amaze the audience.
Cinema will be the direct competitor of Panorama: at the beginning of the twentieth century this mass-media which has entertained tens of millions of visitors rapidly declines.
Most of the panoramas are lost and many "rotundas" are transformed into theaters.
Below is a panorama kept in the Saltzburg Museum by Johann Michael Sattler, an Austrian painter (1786-1847) who portrays the city of Saltzburg in 1828.
Sattler Panorama, Saltzburg
One of the last existing panoramas is in The Hague, Holland: The Mesdag Panorama completed in 1881 by the painter Hendrik Willem Mesdag.
Mesdag Panorama,The Hague
The painter Giovanni Segantini is also passionate about panoramas, and for the Paris expo of 1900, he designs a circular building that should have contained a panorama of the Engadine. He did not find enough funds for the construction (and died in 1899), but his project was later resumed, in a reduced version, for the construction of the Segantini Museum in St. Moritz. There is nothing left of the idea of landscape painting (or sketches of the project).
Drawing by Jakob Ignaz Hittorff for the Panorama Rotunda in Paris 1838.
Sketch for the rotunda of the Panorama of the Engadine by Segantini (never realized) for the Paris EXPO of 1900.
The Panorama rotunda temporary build in Milan for the Italian Exhibition 1881.
NOTE 1) "
Mi volgo d’attorno, le nuvole erano sotto i nostri piedi […] Volgo lo sguardo verso le regioni italiane, dove più tende il mio animo; e vedo come vicine, sebbene siano tanto lontane, quelle Alpi gelate e nevose […] mi volgo indietro, verso occidente, per guardare ed ammirare ciò che ero venuto a vedere […] I Pirenei, che sono di confine tra la Francia e la Spagna, non si vedono di qui, e non credo per qualche ostacolo che vi si frapponga, ma per la sola debolezza della nostra vista; a destra, molto nitidamente, si scorgevano invece i monti della provincia di Lione, a sinistra il mare di Marsiglia e quello che batte Acque Morte, lontani alcuni giorni di cammino; quanto al Rodano, era sotto i nostri occhi."
I turn around, the clouds were under our feet [...] I turn my gaze towards the Italian regions, where my soul tends more; and I see how close, although they are so far away, those frozen and snowy Alps [...] I turn back, to the west, to look and admire what I had come to see [...] The Pyrenees, which are the border between France and Spain, they are not seen from here, and I do not believe for any obstacle that stands in the way, but for the weakness of our sight alone; on the right, very clearly, you could see the mountains of the province of Lyon, on the left the sea of Marseille and the one that beats Acque Morte, a few days' walk away; as for the Rhone, it was before our eyes."
Francesco Petrarca," A Dionigi da San Sepolcro dell'ordine di Sant'Agostino e professore della Sacra Pagina. Sui propri affanni". Malaucena, 26 aprile 1336.
This letter from Petrarch is considered by many scholars and philosophers of the landscape as one of the first considerations (or awareness) of the concept of landscape itself. In reality, the concept of "panorama" emerges, in its nature of the "turning around" (respicio in Latin), of the vision of the back of the right and left, of the under ...
2) The topographical drawings of the Alps by the Swiss naturalist Horace-Bénédict de Saussure must be mentioned previously in Barker.
3) "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 in1792 in an advertisement in The Times. Henceforth it quickly became the definite style for a circular picture." Paul A. Zoetmulder, The Panorama Phenomenon: Mesdag Panorama 1881- 1981 pag 13.
REFERENCES
- S. Oettermann - The Panorama. History of a Mass Medium, Zone Books - New York, 1997
- R. Hyde -Panoramania!, Trefoil Pubblications - London, 1988
- S. Bordini - Storia del Panorama, Officina Edizioni, 1984
- A. Friedemann - Storie di Panorama, Case Editrice Persiani - Bologna, 2013
- Charlotte Bigg - The Panorama, or La Nature A Coup d'OEil, Dietrich Reimer Verlag GmbH - Berlin, 2007
- The Panorama Phenomenon: Mesdag Panorama 1881-1981, Evelyn F. Fruitema and Paul A. Zoetmulder (Editors) - Den Haag, 1991
- International Panorama Council
- Saltzburg Museum/Panorama Museum
- Mesdag panorama
