Panorama and related exhibitions in London

Abstract

From its first appearance in London in 1789 to the end of the nineteenth century, the panorama, an exhibition consisting of a large-scale circular painting depicting a full three hundred and sixty degree view, presented London audiences with its own peculiar blend of art and popular entertainment. This phenomenon was roughly paralleled throughout Europe and America, for the panorama enjoyed world-wide popularity. Through the panorama and the related exhibitions which grew up around it, art was brought to a. wider public, and contemporary artists' preoccupations with realism, atmospheric effects, exotic subject matter, and art as an instrument of instruction were mirrored on a popular level.

In 1793 Robert Barker, the inventor of panoramas, opened an establishment for their exhibition in Leicester Square. This establishment -remained in continuous operation for seventy years, during which time it experienced considerable and varied competition. In the very first years of the nineteenth century, a number of rival panoramas appeared in London, including the well known Eidometropolis of Thomas Girtin. Although the number of competing circular paintings decreased in the coming decades, a great many related optical entertainments arose, the most important of which were the moving panorama, which first appeared in London in 1810, and the diorama, which arrived from Paris in 1823. The original circular form, however, was not forgotten, and at the end of the 1820s, the Colosseum opened, displaying the largest panorama yet seen in London. At mid-century the moving panorama enjoyed a tremendous but rather short-lived burst of popularity. With its passing and with the close of the Leicester Square establishment, the panorama, in all its forms, entered a period of decline, although moving panoramas continued to be shown in London up to the end of the century. Interest in the circular panorama revived in the 1880s, but shortly thereafter the panorama was effectively displaced by the cinema.