Panoramic paintings are massive artworks that reveal a wide, all-encompassing view

View

A view is what can be seen in a range of vision. View may also be used as a synonym of point of view in the first sense. View may also be used figuratively or with special significance—for example, to imply a scenic outlook or significant vantage point:...

 of a particular subject, often a landscape

Landscape

Landscape comprises the visible features of an area of land, including the physical elements of landforms such as mountains, hills, water bodies such as rivers, lakes, ponds and the sea, living elements of land cover including indigenous vegetation, human elements including different forms of...

, military battle, or historical event. They became especially popular in the 19th Century in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 and the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, inciting opposition from writers of Romantic poetry

Romantic poetry

Romanticism, a philosophical, literary, artistic and cultural era which began in the mid/late-1700s as a reaction against the prevailing Enlightenment ideals of the day , also influenced poetry...

. A few have survived into the 21st Century and are on public display.

History

The word "panorama

Panorama

A panorama is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film/video, or a three-dimensional model....

", from Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 pan ("all") horama ("view") was coined by the Irish

Irish people

The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...

 painter Robert Barker

Robert Barker (painter)

Robert Barker was an English painter of Irish ancestry from Newcastle-upon-Tyne-Biography:The English itinerant portrait painter Robert Barker coined the word "panorama", from Greek pan horama in 1792 to describe his paintings of Edinburgh, Scotland shown on a cylindrical surface, which he soon...

 in 1792 to describe his paintings of Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

, Scotland shown on a cylindrical surface, which he soon was exhibiting in London, as "The Panorama". In 1793 Barker moved his panoramas to the first purpose-built panorama building in the world, in Leicester Square

Leicester Square

Leicester Square is a pedestrianised square in the West End of London, England. The Square lies within an area bound by Lisle Street, to the north; Charing Cross Road, to the east; Orange Street, to the south; and Whitcomb Street, to the west...

, and made a fortune.
Viewers flocked to pay a stiff 3 shilling

Shilling

The shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive...

s to stand on a central platform under a skylight, which offered an even lighting, and get an experience that was "panoramic

Panorama

A panorama is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film/video, or a three-dimensional model....

" (an adjective that didn't appear in print until 1813). The extended meaning of a "comprehensive survey" of a subject followed sooner, in 1801. Visitors to Barker's Panorama of London, painted as if viewed from the roof of Albion Mills on the South Bank, could purchase a series of six prints that modestly recalled the experience; end-to-end the prints stretched 3.25 metres. In contrast, the actual panorama spanned 250 square metres.

Despite the success of Barker's first panorama in Leicester Square, it was neither his first attempt at the craft nor his first exhibition. In 1788 Barker showcased his first panorama. It was only a semi-circular view of Edinburgh, Scotland, and Barker's inability to bring the image to a full 360 degrees disappointed him. To realize his true vision, Barker and his son, Henry Aston Barker

Henry Aston Barker

Henry Aston Barker was a Scottish landscape and panorama painter and exhibitor, the son of Robert Barker whose business he continued.-Life and works:...

, took on the task of painting a scene of the Albion Mills. The first version of what was to be Barker's first successful panorama was displayed in the Barker home and measured only 137 square metres.

Barker's accomplishment involved sophisticated manipulations of perspective

Perspective (graphical)

Perspective in the graphic arts, such as drawing, is an approximate representation, on a flat surface , of an image as it is seen by the eye...

 not encountered in the panorama's predecessors, the wide-angle "prospect" of a city familiar since the 16th century, or Wenceslas Hollar

Wenceslas Hollar

Václav Hollar , known in England as Wenceslaus or Wenceslas and in Germany as Wenzel Hollar , was a Bohemian etcher, who lived in England for much of his life...

's "long view" of London, etched on several contiguous sheets. When Barker first patented his technique in 1787, he had given it a French title: La Nature à Coup d’ Oeil ("Nature at a glance"). A sensibility to the "picturesque

Picturesque

Picturesque is an aesthetic ideal introduced into English cultural debate in 1782 by William Gilpin in Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year 1770, a practical book which instructed England's...

" was developing among the educated class, and as they toured picturesque districts, like the Lake District

Lake District

The Lake District, also commonly known as The Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous not only for its lakes and its mountains but also for its associations with the early 19th century poetry and writings of William Wordsworth...

, they might have in the carriage with them a large lens set in a picture frame, a "landscape glass" that would contract a wide view into a "picture" when held at arm's length.

Pierre Prévost (painter)

Pierre Prévost (painter)

Pierre Prévost was the first French panorama painter.Born in the city of Montigny-le-Gannelon, he was a student of Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes...

 (1764–1823) was the first important French panorama painter. Among his 17 panoramas, the most famous describe the cities of Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

, Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

, Jerusalem, Athens

Athens

Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

 and also the battle of Wagram.

Barker made many efforts to increase the realism of his scenes. To fully immerse the audience in the scene, all borders of the canvas were concealed. Props were also strategically positioned on the platform where the audience stood and two windows were laid into the roof to allow natural light to flood the canvases.

Two scenes could be exhibited in the rotunda simultaneously, however the rotunda at Leicester Square was the only one to do so. Houses with single scenes proved more popular to audiences as the fame of the panorama spread. Because the Leicester Square rotunda housed two panoramas, Barker needed a mechanism to clear the minds of the audience as they moved from one panorama to the other. To accomplish this, patrons walked down a dark corridor where their minds were supposed to be refreshed for viewing the new scene. Due to the immense size of the panorama, patrons were given orientation plans to help them navigate the scene. These glorified maps pinpointed key buildings, sites, or events exhibited on the canvas.

To create a panorama, artists travelled to the sites and sketched the scenes multiple times. Typically a team of artists worked on one project with each team specializing in a certain aspect of the painting such as landscapes, people or skies. After completing their sketches, the artists typically consulted other paintings, of average size, to add further detail. Martin Meisel described the panorama perfectly in his book Realizations: “In its impact, the Panorama was a comprehensive form, the representation not of the segment of a world, but of a world entire seen from a focal height.” Though the artists painstakingly documented every detail of a scene, by doing so they created a world complete in and of itself.

The first panoramas depicted urban settings, such as cities, while later panoramas depicted nature and famous military battles. The necessity for military scenes increased in part because so many were taking place. French battles commonly found their way to rotundas thanks to the feisty leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte. Henry Aston Barker's travels to France during the Peace of Amiens led him to court, where Bonaparte accepted him. Henry Aston created panoramas of Bonaparte's battles including The Battle of Waterloo, which saw so much success that he retired after finishing it. Henry Aston's relationship with Bonaparte continued following Bonaparte's exile to Elba, where Henry Aston visited the former emperor.

Outside of England and France, the popularity of panoramas depended on the type of scene displayed. Typically, people wanted to see images from their own countries or from England. This principle rang true in Switzerland, where views of the Alps dominated. Likewise in America, New York City panoramas found popularity, as well as imports from Barker's rotunda. As painter John Vanderlyn soon found out, French politics did not interest Americans. In particular, his depiction of Louis XVIII's return to the throne did not live two months in the rotunda before a new panorama took its place.

Barker's Panorama was hugely successful and spawned a series of "immersive" panoramas: the Museum of London's curators found mention of 126 panoramas that were exhibited between 1793 and 1863. In Europe, panoramas were created of historical events and battles, notably by the Russian painter Franz Roubaud

Franz Roubaud

Franz Alekseyevich Roubaud was a Russian painter who created some of the largest and best known panoramic paintings.Roubaud was born on 15 June 1856 in Odessa and attended an art school there. In 1877 he went to Munich, where he studied at the Munich Academy...

. Most major European cities featured more than one purpose-built structure hosting panoramas. These large fixed-circle panoramas declined in popularity in the latter third of the nineteenth century, though in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 they experienced a partial revival; in this period, they were more commonly referred to as cyclorama

Cyclorama

For the classical album Cyclorama, see Jonathan Goldstein; For the rock album Cyclorama by Styx, see Cyclorama ; for the theatrical backdrop, see Cyclorama...

s.

The panorama competed for audiences most frequently with the diorama

Diorama

The word diorama can either refer to a nineteenth century mobile theatre device, or, in modern usage, a three-dimensional full-size or miniature model, sometimes enclosed in a glass showcase for a museum...

, a slightly curved or flat canvas extending 22 by 14 metres. The diorama was invented in 1822 by Louis Daguerre

Louis Daguerre

Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre was a French artist and physicist, recognized for his invention of the daguerreotype process of photography.- Biography :...

 and Charles-Marie Bouton, the latter a former student of the renowned French painter Jacques-Louis David

Jacques-Louis David

Jacques-Louis David was an influential French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era...

.

Unlike the panorama where spectators had to move to view the scene, the scenes on the diorama moved so the audience could remain seated. Accomplished with four screens on a roundabout, the illusion captivated 350 spectators at a time for a period of 15 minutes. The images rotated in a 73 degree arc, focusing on two of the four scenes while the remaining two were prepared, which allowed the canvases to be refreshed throughout the course of the show. While topographical detail was crucial to panoramas, as evidenced by the teams of artists who worked on them, the effect of the illusion took precedence with the diorama. Painters of the diorama also added their own twist to the panorama’s props, but instead of props to make the scenes more real, they incorporated sounds. Another similarity to the panorama was the effect the diorama had on its audience. Some patrons experienced a stupor, while others were alienated by the spectacle. The alienation of the diorama was caused by the connection the scene drew to art, nature and death. After Daguerre and Bouton’s first exhibition in London, one reviewer noted a stillness like that “of the grave.” To remedy this tomblike atmosphere Daguerre painted both sides of the canvas, known as “the double effect.” By lighting both painted sides of the canvas, light was transmitted and reflected producing a type of transparency producing the effect of time passing. This effect gave the crew operating the lights and turning the roundabout a new type of control over the audience than the panorama ever had.

In Britain and particularly in the US

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, the panoramic ideal was intensified by unrolling a canvas-backed scroll past the viewer in a Moving Panorama

Moving panorama

The moving panorama was a relative, more in concept than design, to panoramic painting, but proved to be more durable than its fixed and immense cousin. The word “panorama” is derived from the Greek words “to see” and “all.” Robert Barker invented the first panorama to describe his impressive...

, an alteration of an idea that was familiar in the hand-held landscape scrolls of Song China. First unveiled in 1809 in Edinburgh, Scotland, the moving panorama required a large canvas and two vertical rollers to be set up on a stage. Peter Marshall added the twist to Barker’s original creation, which saw success throughout the 19th and into the 20th century. The scene or variation of scenes passed between the rollers, eliminating the need to showcase and view the panorama in a rotunda. A precursor to "moving" pictures (See motion picture.), the moving panorama incorporated music, sound effects and stand-alone cut-outs to create their mobile effect. Such a traveling motion allowed for new types of scenes, such as chase sequences, that could not be produced so well in either the diorama or the panorama. In contrast specifically to the diorama, where the audience seemed to be physically rotated, the moving panorama gave patrons a new perspective, allowing them to “(function) as a moving eye.”

Romantic criticism of panoramas

The panorama’s rise in popularity was a result of its accessibility in that people did not need a certain level of education to enjoy the views it offered. Accordingly, patrons from across the social scale flocked to rotundas throughout Europe.

While easy access was an attraction of the panorama, some people believed it was nothing more than a parlor trick bent on deceiving its public audience. Designed to have a lingering effect upon the viewer, the panorama was placed in the same category as propaganda of the period, which was also seen as deceitful. The locality paradox also attributed to the arguments of panorama critics. A phenomenon resulting from immersion in a panorama, the locality paradox happened when people were unable to distinguish where they were: in the rotunda or at the scene they were seeing.

Writers feared the panorama for the simplicity of its illusion. Hester Piozzi was among those who rebelled against the growing popularity of the panorama for precisely this reason. She did not like seeing so many people – elite and otherwise – fooled by something so simple.

Another problem with the panorama was what it came to be associated with, namely, by redefining the sublime to incorporate the material. In their earliest forms, panoramas depicted topographical scenes and in so doing, made the sublime accessible to every person with 3 shillings in his or her pocket. The sublime became an everyday thing and therefore, a material commodity. By associating the sublime with the material, the panorama was seen as a threat to romanticism, which was obsessed with the sublime. According to the romantics, the sublime was never supposed to include materiality and by linking the two, panoramas tainted the sublime.

The poet William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....

 has long been characterized as an opponent of the panorama, most notably for his allusion to it in Book Seven of The Prelude

The Prelude

The Prelude; or, Growth of a Poet's Mind is an autobiographical, "philosophical" poem in blank verse by the English poet William Wordsworth. Wordsworth wrote the first version of the poem when he was 28, and worked over the rest of it for his long life without publishing it...

. It has been argued that Wordsworth’s problem with the panorama was the deceit it used to gain popularity. He felt, critics say, that the panorama not only exhibited an immense scene of some kind, but also the weakness of human intelligence. Wordsworth was offended by the fact that so many people found panoramas irresistible and concluded that people were not smart enough to see through the charade. Because of his argument in "The Prelude," it is safe to assume Wordsworth saw a panorama at some point during his life, but it is unknown which one he saw. Situation as it is, there is no substantial proof he ever went, other than his description in the poem.

However, Wordsworth's hatred of the panorama was not limited to its deceit. The panorama's association with the sublime was likewise offensive to the poet as were other spectacles of the period that competed with reality. As a poet, Wordsworth sought to separate his craft from the phantasmagoria

Phantasmagoria

Phantasmagoria can refer to:* Phantasmagoria, a type of show using an optical device to display moving images* Phantasmagoria, a video game* Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh, a video game sequel to Phantasmagoria...

 enveloping the population. In this context, phantasmagoria refers to signs and other circulated propaganda, including billboards, illustrated newspapers and panoramas themselves. Wordsworth's biggest problem with panoramas was their pretense: the panorama lulled spectators into stupors, inhibiting their ability to imagine things for themselves. Wordsworth wanted people to see the representation depicted in the panorama and appreciate it for what it was – art.

Conversely, some critics argue Wordsworth was not opposed to the panorama, but was rather hesitant about it. A main argument is that other episodes in The Prelude have just as much sensory depth as panoramas had. Such depth could only be accomplished through imitation of the human senses, something both the panorama and The Prelude succeed at. Therefore, since both the panorama and The Prelude imitate the senses, they are equal and suggest Wordsworth was not entirely opposed to panoramas.

A modern take on the panorama believes the enormous paintings filled a hole in the lives of those who lived during the nineteenth century. Bernard Comment said in his book The Painted Panorama, that the masses needed “absolute dominance” and the illusion offered by the panorama gave them a sense of organization and control. Despite the power it wielded, the panorama detached audiences from the scene they viewed, replacing reality and encouraging them to watch the world rather than experience it.

Surviving panoramas

Relatively few of these unwieldy ephemera survive; a rare surviving great-circle panorama is the Panorama Mesdag

Panorama Mesdag

Panorama Mesdag is a panorama by Hendrik Willem Mesdag. Housed in a purpose-built museum in The Hague, the panorama is a cylindrical painting more than 14 metres high and about 40 metres in diameter...

 in a purpose-built museum in The Hague

The Hague

The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...

, showing the dunes of nearby Scheveningen. There is a panorama located at the battlefield of Waterloo

Waterloo, Belgium

Waterloo is a Walloon municipality located in the province of Walloon Brabant, Belgium. On December 31, 2009, Waterloo had a total population of 29,573. The total area is 21.03 km² which gives a population density of 1,407 inhabitants per km²...

, depicting the battle

Battle of Waterloo

The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815 near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands...

.

An exhibition "Panoramania" was held at the Barbican in the 1980s, with a catalog by Ralph Hyde

Ralph Hyde

Ralph Hyde, a former curator of graphic arts at the Guildhall Library in London, is a pre-eminent historian and writer on the subject of Panoramic painting. Since his retirement, he has lived in France and continues as an active scholar in the field...

. The Racławice Panorama, currently located in Wrocław, Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

, is a monumental (15 × 120 metre) panoramic painting depicting the Battle of Racławice, during the Kościuszko Uprising

Kosciuszko Uprising

The Kościuszko Uprising was an uprising against Imperial Russia and the Kingdom of Prussia led by Tadeusz Kościuszko in Poland, Belarus and Lithuania in 1794...

. A panorama of the Battle of Stalingrad

Battle of Stalingrad

The Battle of Stalingrad was a major battle of World War II in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in southwestern Russia. The battle took place between 23 August 1942 and 2 February 1943...

 is on display at Mamayev Kurgan

Mamayev Kurgan

Mamayev Kurgan is a dominant height overlooking the city of Volgograd in Southern Russia. The name in Russian means "tumulus of Mamai"....

. Among Franz Roubaud

Franz Roubaud

Franz Alekseyevich Roubaud was a Russian painter who created some of the largest and best known panoramic paintings.Roubaud was born on 15 June 1856 in Odessa and attended an art school there. In 1877 he went to Munich, where he studied at the Munich Academy...

's great panoramas, those depicting the Siege of Sevastopol (1905) and Battle of Borodino

Battle of Borodino

The Battle of Borodino , fought on September 7, 1812, was the largest and bloodiest single-day action of the French invasion of Russia and all Napoleonic Wars, involving more than 250,000 troops and resulting in at least 70,000 casualties...

 (1911) survive, although the former was damaged during the Siege of Sevastopol (1942) and the latter was transferred to Poklonnaya Gora. The Pleven Panorama

Pleven Panorama

Pleven Epopee 1877, more commonly known as Pleven Panorama, is a panorama located in Pleven, Bulgaria, that depicts the events of the Russian-Turkish War of 1877–78, specifically the five-month Siege of Plevna which made the city internationally famous and which contributed to the Liberation of...

 in Pleven

Pleven

Pleven is the seventh most populous city in Bulgaria. Located in the northern part of the country, it is the administrative centre of Pleven Province, as well as of the subordinate Pleven municipality...

, Bulgaria

Bulgaria

Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

, depicts the events of the Siege of Plevna in 1877 on a 115×15-metre canvas with a 12-meter foreground.

Five large panoramas survive in North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

: Jerusalem at the Moment of Christ's Death, at St. Anne, outside of Quebec City

Quebec City

Quebec , also Québec, Quebec City or Québec City is the capital of the Canadian province of Quebec and is located within the Capitale-Nationale region. It is the second most populous city in Quebec after Montreal, which is about to the southwest...

, the Gettysburg Cyclorama

Gettysburg Cyclorama

The Battle of Gettysburg, also known as the Gettysburg Cyclorama, is a cyclorama painting by the French artist Paul Philippoteaux depicting "Pickett's Charge", the climactic Confederate attack on the Union forces during the Battle of Gettysburg on July 3, 1863...

 depicting Pickett's Charge

Pickett's Charge

Pickett's Charge was an infantry assault ordered by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee against Maj. Gen. George G. Meade's Union positions on Cemetery Ridge on July 3, 1863, the last day of the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. Its futility was predicted by the charge's commander,...

 during the Battle of Gettysburg

Battle of Gettysburg

The Battle of Gettysburg , was fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The battle with the largest number of casualties in the American Civil War, it is often described as the war's turning point. Union Maj. Gen. George Gordon Meade's Army of the Potomac...

 in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

Gettysburg is a borough that is the county seat, part of the Gettysburg Battlefield, and the eponym for the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg. The town hosts visitors to the Gettysburg National Military Park and has 3 institutions of higher learning: Lutheran Theological Seminary, Gettysburg College, and...

, John Vanderlyn

John Vanderlyn

John Vanderlyn was an American neoclassicist painter.-Biography:Vanderlyn was born at Kingston, New York. He was employed by a print-seller in New York, and was first instructed in art by Archibald Robinson , a Scotsman who was afterwards one of the directors of the American Academy of the Fine Arts...

's Panorama of the Garden and Palace of Versailes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...

 in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, and the Cyclorama

Atlanta Cyclorama

The Atlanta Cyclorama and Civil War Museum is a civil war museum located in Atlanta, its most noted attraction being the Atlanta Cyclorama, a cylindrical panoramic painting of the American Civil War Battle of Atlanta...

 of the Battle of Atlanta

Battle of Atlanta

The Battle of Atlanta was a battle of the Atlanta Campaign fought during the American Civil War on July 22, 1864, just southeast of Atlanta, Georgia. Continuing their summer campaign to seize the important rail and supply center of Atlanta, Union forces commanded by William T. Sherman overwhelmed...

 in Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...

. A fifth panorama, also depicting the Battle of Gettysburg, was willed in 1996 to Wake Forest University

Wake Forest University

Wake Forest University is a private, coeducational university in the U.S. state of North Carolina, founded in 1834. The university received its name from its original location in Wake Forest, north of Raleigh, North Carolina, the state capital. The Reynolda Campus, the university's main campus, is...

 in North Carolina

North Carolina

North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

; it is in poor condition and not on public display. It was purchased in 2007 by a group of North Carolina investors who hope to resell it to someone willing to restore it. Only pieces survive of a massive cyclorama depicting the Battle of Shiloh

Battle of Shiloh

The Battle of Shiloh, also known as the Battle of Pittsburg Landing, was a major battle in the Western Theater of the American Civil War, fought April 6–7, 1862, in southwestern Tennessee. A Union army under Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant had moved via the Tennessee River deep into Tennessee and...

.

In the area of the Moving Panorama

Moving panorama

The moving panorama was a relative, more in concept than design, to panoramic painting, but proved to be more durable than its fixed and immense cousin. The word “panorama” is derived from the Greek words “to see” and “all.” Robert Barker invented the first panorama to describe his impressive...

, there are somewhat more extant, though many are in poor repair and the conservation of such enormous paintings poses very expensive problems. The most notable rediscovered panorama in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 was the Great Moving Panorama of Pilgrim's Progress, which was found in storage at the York Institute now the Saco Museum in Saco, Maine

Saco, Maine

Saco is a city in York County, Maine, United States. The population was 18,482 at the 2010 census. It is home to Ferry Beach State Park, Funtown Splashtown USA, Thornton Academy, as well as General Dynamics Armament Systems , a subsidiary of the defense contractor General Dynamics...

, by its former curator Tom Hardiman. It was found to incorporate designs by many of the leading painters of its day, including Jasper Francis Cropsey

Jasper Francis Cropsey

Jasper Francis Cropsey was an important American landscape artist of the Hudson River School.-Biography:Cropsey was born on his father Jacob Rezeau Cropsey's farm in Rossville on Staten Island, New York, the oldest of eight children. As a young boy, Cropsey had recurring periods of poor health....

, Frederic Edwin Church

Frederic Edwin Church

Frederic Edwin Church was an American landscape painter born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters...

, and Henry Courtney Selous

Henry Courtney Selous

Henry Courtney Selous , was an English painter, illustrator and lithographer. He was the son of Gideon "George" Slous , a Flemish portrait and miniature painter, and a pupil of John Martin who was an important and influential English painter of the 19th century...

 (Selous was the in-house painter for the original Barker panorama in London for many years.)

Another moving panorama was donated to the Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection at Brown University Library in 2005. Painted in Nottingham, England around 1860 by John James Story (d. 1900), it depicts the life and career of the great Italian patriot, Giuseppe Garibaldi

Giuseppe Garibaldi

Giuseppe Garibaldi was an Italian military and political figure. In his twenties, he joined the Carbonari Italian patriot revolutionaries, and fled Italy after a failed insurrection. Garibaldi took part in the War of the Farrapos and the Uruguayan Civil War leading the Italian Legion, and...

 (1807–1882). The panorama stands about 4½ feet high and approximately 273 feet long, painted on both sides in watercolor. Numerous battles and other dramatic events in his life are depicted in 42 scenes, and the original narration written in ink survives.

The Arrival of the Hungarians

Arrival of the Hungarians

The Arrival of the Hungarians is a large cyclorama - a circular panoramic painting - by Hungarian painter Árpád Feszty and his assistants, depicting the arrival of the Hungarians to the Carpathian Basin in 895. It was completed in 1894 for the 1000th anniversary of the event...

, a vast cyclorama by Árpád Feszty

Árpád Feszty

Árpád Feszty was a Hungarian painter.He was born in the town of Ógyalla . His ancestors were German settlers . He was the fifth child of Silvester Rehrenbeck , an affluent landowner at Ógyalla, and his wife Jozefa...

 et al., completed in 1894, is displayed at the Ópusztaszer

Ópusztaszer

Ópusztaszer is a village in Csongrád county, in the Southern Great Plain region of southern Hungary. It is most known as the location of the National Historical Memorial Park.-Geography:...

 National Historical Memorial Park

National Historical Memorial Park of Ópusztaszer

The National Historical Memorial Park is a memorial park and open-air museum of Hungarian history in Ópusztaszer, Hungary. It was established in 1982 and is most famous for being the location of the Feszty Panorama, a cyclorama depicting the arrival of the Hungarians to the Carpathian Basin in 895....

 in Hungary

Hungary

Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

. It was made to commemorate the 1000th anniversary of the 895 conquest of the Carpathian Basin by the Hungarians.

The Cyclorama of Early Melbourne, by artist John Hennings in 1892, still survives albeit having suffered water damage during a fire. Painted from a panoramic sketch of Early Melbourne in 1842 by Samuel Jackson. It places the viewer on top of the partially constructed Scott's Church on Collins Street in the Melbourne CBD. Commissioned to celebrate 50 years of the city of Melbourne, it was displayed in the Melbourne Exhibition Building for nearly 30 years before being taken into storage. Relatively small for a Cyclorama, it measured just 100 feet long and 13 feet high.

See also

• Panorama
  Panorama
  A panorama is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film/video, or a three-dimensional model....
  
  
• Hanging scroll
  Hanging scroll
  A hanging scroll is one of the many traditional ways to display and exhibit Chinese painting and calligraphy. Displaying the art in such way was befitting for public appreciation and appraisal of the aesthetics of the scrolls in its entirety by the audience. The traditional craft involved in...
  
  
• International Panorama Council
  International Panorama Council
  The International Panorama Council is a global network involving museum directors, managers, artists, restorers and historians who deal with the historical or the contemporary art and media forms of the Panorama...
  
  
• Moving panorama
  Moving panorama
  The moving panorama was a relative, more in concept than design, to panoramic painting, but proved to be more durable than its fixed and immense cousin. The word “panorama” is derived from the Greek words “to see” and “all.” Robert Barker invented the first panorama to describe his impressive...
  
  
• Myriorama
  Myriorama
  Myriorama originally meant a set of illustrated cards which 19th century children could arrange and re-arrange, forming different pictures. Later in the century the name was also applied to shows using a sequence of impressive visual effects to entertain and inform an audience...
  
  
• Mareorama
  Mareorama
  The Mareorama was an entertainment attraction at the 1900 Paris Exposition. It was created by Hugo d'Alesi, a painter of advertising posters, and was a combination of moving panoramic paintings and a large motion platform...
  
  
• Cinéorama
  Cinéorama
  Cinéorama was an early film experiment and amusement ride at the 1900 Paris Exposition devised by Raoul Grimoin-Sanson, that simulated a ride in a hot air balloon over Paris...
  
  
• Trans-Siberian Railway Panorama
  Trans-Siberian Railway Panorama
  The Trans-Siberian Railway Panorama was a simulated train ride, using a moving panorama, first exhibited at the 1900 Paris Exposition. The panorama itself is also known as The Great Siberian Route: the Main Trans-Siberian Railway....
  
  

External links

• Online Etymology Dictionary: Panorama
• Michael Quinion, "World Wide Words"; Panorama
• "The 'Panorama'": Edinburgh's panorama
• Panorama of London from Albion Mills: a semi-circular view in hand watercolored prints
• Museum of London website Panoramania!
• Website of the International Panorama Council IPC listing all existing panoramas and cycloramas worldwide
• Garibaldi & the Risorgimento
• Racławice Panorama in Wrocław
• Thomas -"Making Visible: The Diorama, the Double and the (Gothic) Subject"- Gothic Technologies: Visuality in the Romantic Era - Praxis Series - Romantic Circles