On the Viewing Platform

The Panorama between Canvas and Screen

Tim Barringer author Katie Trumpener author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Yale University Press

Published:10th Nov '20

Should be back in stock very soon

On the Viewing Platform cover

A wide-ranging study of the painted panorama’s influence on art, photography, and film

This ambitious volume presents a multifaceted account of the legacy of the circular painted panorama and its far-reaching influence on art, photography, film, and architecture. From its 18th-century origins, the panorama quickly became a global mass-cultural phenomenon, often linked to an imperial worldview. Yet it also transformed modes of viewing and exerted a lasting, visible impact on filmmaking techniques, museum displays, and contemporary installation art. On the Viewing Platform offers close readings of works ranging from proto-panoramic Renaissance cityscapes and 19th-century paintings and photographs to experimental films and a wide array of contemporary art. Extensively researched and spectacularly illustrated, this volume proposes an expansive new framework for understanding the histories of art, film, and spectatorship.

“An intelligent and expansive study of an art form that is now rare and no longer practiced in its pure form.”—Alexander Adams, The Jackdaw



“An extremely rich account of the panorama format and its endurance across several centuries. The contributors bring expertise from art history, film history, media theory, and architectural theory, and convincingly make the case that the panorama belongs equally to all these fields.”— Antonia Lant, New York University


ISBN: 9780300184792

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

324 pages