The Early Stages of Cinema
Camera obscura in Buchform
'New media' have always fascinated people. They have changed our ways of seeing and had far-reaching economic and social effects. The new exhibition takes you on a close encounter with the diverse developments in illusion and the art of picture projection since the Middle Ages.
The 'camera obscuras', the 'dark chambers' which were known to Leonardo da Vinci, enabled the projection of an image of nature into a darkened room through a small hole. The principle of photographic reproduction of images was already embodied in this 'world in a box'.
Peep-show cabinet from around 1830 with wooden-frames copperplate engravings
The eyepiece of the peep-show cabinet at fairs opened up vistas of far-away cities, battles, or scenes from ancient mythology. The transparent and reflective properties of glass were used to create the special effect of alternating images by painting the glass on both sides. Glass lenses created the illusion of three-dimensionality and plasticity.
Two-storey laterna magica used as a professional dissolving-view apparatus in the 19th century
Projection artists thrilled large audiences with the magic lantern (Flash Animation). Colourful, mechanically moveable pictures were painted on sheets of glass and together with eerie stories they conveyed a new kind of 'action' in the 17th and 18th centuries. The Magic Lantern Theatre gives an impression of this.
There were already 'special effects' back in those days of shadow play and phantasmagoria, where images of skeletons projected onto wafting clouds of smoke did battle with actors dressed as ghosts. These phantasmagoria shows soon evolved into 'mechanical theatre', which offered both popular and scholarly slide presentations. The technique of fading from one scene to another and the use of moving parts in the images soon gave the presentations a 'cinematographic' feel.