The medium of panorama

Before the first moving pictures filled the cinemas, with their representations of towns, landscapes and battles, panoramas were the major draw for public audiences. Their inventor was the British painter Robert Barker, who patented this new medium in 1787, and himself painted a 360-degree picture of Edinburgh.

Visual pleasure is a fundamental human need and has given rise to experimentation with optical illusions since time immemorial. The paintings are made as realistic as possible, given ingeniously-staged lighting, provided with installative elements («faux terrain»), and viewed from a platform. The combination of circular painting and faux terrain surrounds the viewer and creates a powerful overall visual construct. The viewer is immediately in the middle of the depicted landscape or the presented event. The scattering of daylight from skylights reinforces the impression of three-dimensional reality. The panorama transcends the boundaries of time and place and invites viewers to witness the events depicted. Landscapes, cityscapes, or historic battles, as well as religious themes, such as Jerusalem and the Crucifixion of Christ, are primarily represented in historic panoramas.

Speaking of visual pleasure

Humans have always been fascinated by optical illusions. Since time immemorial, their visual pleasure has fuelled tinkering with illusionary effects. The desire to imitate reality and create illusions runs through all eras of art and media history. The basis for this is, on the one hand, the requirement to create a stronger emotional bond between the observer and a story using refined techniques. On the other hand, the joy of immersing oneself in ever new variations of pure visual pleasure has given rise to the search for new illusion techniques.
Inventors, experimentalists and artists have succeeded in creating objects and mechanisms through a continuous development process, which fool the eye, simulate the three-dimensional world and produce illusions. This includes inventions such as the Trompe–l’Œil painting technique, camera obscura, laterna magica, the zoetrope, the stroboscope or the flip book.

The so-called “grand panoramas” formed a milestone in the creation of illusory worlds, including the Bourbaki Panorama Lucerne, as one of the world’s most important and best-preserved examples.

The world of panoramas

Its sophisticated optical illusionary effect made the panorama the visual mass medium of the 19th century, the “cinema avant la letter”. With its endeavour to blur the boundaries between reality and illusion, it is also considered a pioneer for today’s 3D projections and virtual reality representations.

Around 30 circular and semi-circular panoramas from the 19th and early 20th centuries have survived to this day. Some of them are on display and accessible to visitors. Others, some of which are in pieces, are in storage and therefore not accessible to the public.

The phenomenon of the panorama remains alive and continues to develop. The panorama medium is currently experiencing a new boom. The need for illusion and suggestion in all its forms is as strong as ever: in addition to the surviving historical panoramas from the 19th and early 20th centuries, new circular panoramas and semi-circular panoramas have been and continue to be created. The global family of panoramas is growing, and a new panorama is added almost every year! There are currently around 85 circular panoramas worldwide.

Edouard Castres

Castres was a painter with a mission. The painter of the Bourbaki Panorama knew exactly what he wanted to put on the canvas. Edouard Castres (1838–1902) personally witnessed Les Verrières border crossing as a volunteer medic with the Red Cross. His realistic representation of the suffering of war, which concentrates on individual fates, is a wake-up call for peace.

From a compositional point of view, Castres needed to master different challenges. It is impressive how he manages to present the lengthy Val de Travers on a circular canvas. Another decisive factor for the effect is the selection of the panorama’s “ideal centre”. He has constructed a location, from which the landscape and the events can be viewed as far away as right down into the valley. Castres completed the panoramic picture in 1881 in Geneva with a team of painters, some of whom were recruited from the ranks of Barthélemy Menn’s students, including the young Ferdinand Hodler.