History & The Arts
Virtual reality, 19th Century style: The history of the panorama and balloon view
...projected and demanded an observer situated at an exterior, elevated point; it was a way of making sense of the large space and depth of a city view. The viewer of the picture needed to occupy this ideal viewpoint, imagine themselves into the landscape, while they read the image. From the late eighteenth century the panorama modulated this scopic regime, by immersing the...
