Myriorama (cards)

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Myriorama cards - 19th century - these came from a set of 18

Myriorama originally referred to a set of illustrated cards that 19th century children could arrange and re-arrange, forming different pictures. Later in the century the name was also applied to performances using a sequence of impressive visual effects to entertain and inform an audience. The word myriorama was invented to mean myriad pictures, following the model of panorama, diorama, cosmorama and other novelties.[1] These were all part of a wider interest in viewing landscape as panorama, and in new ways of presenting "spectacular" scenes.[2]

History[edit]

The early myrioramas were cards with people, buildings, and other images on compatible backgrounds, and could be laid out in any order, allowing a child to create a variety of imaginary landscapes. Jean-Pierre Brès, a French children's writer, published an early version which he described as a polyoptic picture (tableau polyoptique) in the early 19th century, and John Clark of London took up the idea and designed a set of cards he called a myriorama. Clark's "second series" myriorama, an "Italian landscape", was produced in 1824,[3] the same year as a similar set of English cards called a panoramacopia created by drawing teacher T.T.Dales.[4]

Later in the 19th century, the term myriorama was used by the Poole Brothers to describe their popular moving panoramas.

After 1950[edit]

Reproductions of period cards are sometimes found, marketed alongside other "traditional toys". Ralph Hyde published Panoramania! in 1988, reproducing several myrioramas as well as other, uncut panoramas.[5] Various contemporary artists have used the idea as inspiration for work they have named myriorama.

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Words ending -orama (from Greek something seen) were popular at the time for visual novelties and displays: cosmorama, georama, pleorama etc. (OED)
  2. ^ Sophie Thomas, Gothic Technologies: Visuality in the Romantic Era
  3. ^ Blackwood's Magazine Jan–June 1824
  4. ^ Cambridge library
  5. ^ "In Memoriam: Ralph Hyde, 1939 to 2015". The Crankie Factory. Archived from the original on 2015-08-23.

Sources[edit]

Further reading[edit]

  • Ralph Hyde, "Myrioramas, Endless Landscapes: The Story of a Craze", Print Quarterly, December 2004, XXI