The Dresden Panometer is an attraction in Dresden

Dresden

Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. It is a panoramic painting

Panoramic painting

Panoramic paintings are massive artworks that reveal a wide, all-encompassing view of a particular subject, often a landscape, military battle, or historical event. They became especially popular in the 19th Century in Europe and the United States, inciting opposition from writers of Romantic poetry...

 inside a former gasometer, showing Dresden as it might have appeared in 1756, accompanied by an exhibition. The Panometer was created in 2006 by the Austrian-born artist Yadegar Asisi, who coined the name as a portmanteau of "panorama" and "gasometer". In 2003 he had opened a Panometer in Leipzig

Leipzig Panometer

The Leipzig Panometer is an attraction in Leipzig, Germany. It is a visual panorama displayed inside a former gasometer, accompanied by a thematic exhibition. The current theme is the Amazon Rainforest. The Panometer was created in 2003 by the Austrian-born artist Yadegar Asisi, who coined the...

.

Building

The Dresden Panometer occupies a disused telescopic gas holder in Reick, built in 1879–80. The gasometer is 39 metres (128 ft) in height and 54 metres (177.2 ft) in diameter. Buildings of this type are particularly suitable for panoramic pictures due to their circular shape and ample interior space.

Panorama and exhibition

The panorama, titled Dresden 1756, hangs on the inner wall and is 27 metres (88.6 ft) in height and 105 metres (344.5 ft) in circumference. It is viewed from a raised platform in the centre, and uses perspective to create a realistic sense of distance. It portrays the baroque

Baroque architecture

Baroque architecture is a term used to describe the building style of the Baroque era, begun in late sixteenth century Italy, that took the Roman vocabulary of Renaissance architecture and used it in a new rhetorical and theatrical fashion, often to express the triumph of the Catholic Church and...

 Dresden skyline of 1756 – for the most part historically accurate, but with some artistic modifications – as seen from the Katholische Hofkirche

Katholische Hofkirche

The Katholische Hofkirche is a Roman Catholic Cathedral, located in the 'Altstadt' in the heart of Dresden, in Germany. Previously the most important Catholic parish church of the city, it was elevated to cathedral of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Dresden-Meissen in 1964.-Overview:The Hofkirche...

. There is a musical soundtrack by the Belgian composer Eric Babak.

The circular walkway between the panorama and the outer wall contains an exhibition on the creation of the painting and the old Dresden skyline. It features historic city maps and original drawings from the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as paintings of the skyline by Asisi himself. There is also a large bell from the Neustädter Rathaus and exterior decorations from now-demolished buildings.

Asisi's research in creating the panorama was based on several vedute

Veduta

A veduta is a highly detailed, usually large-scale painting of a cityscape or some other vista....

: precise, historic drawings of the city skyline. The most important veduta painter in mid-18th century Dresden was Bernardo Bellotto

Bernardo Bellotto

Bernardo Bellotto was a Venitian urban landscape painter or vedutista, and printmaker in etching famous for his vedutes of European cities . He was the pupil and nephew of Canaletto and sometimes used the latter's illustrious name, signing himself as Bernardo Canaletto...

 (nephew of Canaletto

Canaletto

Giovanni Antonio Canal better known as Canaletto , was a Venetian painter famous for his landscapes, or vedute, of Venice. He was also an important printmaker in etching.- Early career :...

, and sometimes actually known by that name), whose pictures can be precisely dated.

The Dresden Panometer received over 500,000 visitors in its first two years from December 2006. Asisi plans to display the current panorama until 2016.

External links

• Home page in English