Panorama

About Panorama

The panorama began as a public spectacle. In 1787 the painter Robert Barker patented a scheme for a circular painting seen from a central platform, and his purpose-built rotunda in Leicester Square, London, opened in 1793. Visitors climbed a dim stair and emerged surrounded by a city or a battle, with the upper and lower edges of the canvas hidden to strengthen the illusion. The craze spread across Europe and America; Hendrik Willem Mesdag's Panorama of Scheveningen (1881) still stands in The Hague.

Extended views existed before the name. Wenceslaus Hollar's etched Long View of London from Bankside (1647) runs across six joined sheets. Photographers soon adopted the format, joining several plates, as in Eadweard Muybridge's 1878 panorama of San Francisco, or using swinging-lens cameras. Today Barry Frydlender stitches many exposures taken over time into single wide images of Israeli streets and gatherings.