Comments on: Figures in a Parkland

Figures in a Parkland

derangedlarid — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 22:07:27 -0800

In 1783 a French artist going by the name of Carmontelle created a scroll that was 138 feet long and offered viewers a continuous translucent moving image called "Figures in a Parkland". The Getty Museum beautifully put the scroll on exhibit. Be sure to take a virtual stroll through the images.

By: meringue

meringue — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 00:25:11 -0800

Beautiful. The amount of work that must have gone into that is extraordinary.

By: weapons-grade pandemonium

weapons-grade pandemonium — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 02:06:12 -0800

Where did you get 138 feet? The articles I read all say 12 feet.

By: StickyCarpet

StickyCarpet — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 06:05:14 -0800

138 feet? Yeah, I'm looking at that thinking, "wow, this thing is 10 feet tall."

By: surrendering monkey

surrendering monkey — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 06:14:47 -0800

Carmontelle made more than one scroll: - "The luminous scenes of verdant parks and splendidly attired people — between 12 and 19 inches deep and up to 138 feet long" (first link) - "Ms. Chatel de Brancion found seven in her explorations, including a 138-foot-long one that captures the lives of both the working classes and the gentry across" (first link) The one showed in the last link is obviously not that long. So the post is a bit misleading, but there were such long scrolls, therefore everybody loses.

By: mygothlaundry

mygothlaundry — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 07:37:10 -0800

Wow, this is fabulous. It's like the precursor to the cyclorama and makes you think, aha, so this is where that idea came from. I wish the original story he told had been saved; still, I'm rereading the Baroque Cycle right now and it's great to imagine those characters in this landscape.

By: carter

carter — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 13:34:03 -0800

Cool stuff, thanks for posting!

By: aldus_manutius

aldus_manutius — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 14:16:13 -0800

Brown University ALSO has a similar scroll of the history of Garibaldi ... they have recently finished digitizing it and it has been documented elsewhere : http://www.brown.edu/Administration/News_Bureau/2007-08/07-038.html http://www.projo.com/art/content/GARIBALDI_PANORAMA_12-10-07_1K84NF2_v43.1420d1b.html and no less than Bruce Sterling, over on Dead Media, commenting last Fall: http://blog.wired.com/sterling/2007/11/dead-media-be-4.html This was how history was shared ... fun, eh, kids?

By: spongeboy

spongeboy — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 18:01:26 -0800

I've read about some similar, later work done by John Banvard. The book mentioned in the above link, Paul S. Collins's Banvard's Folly: Thirteen Tales of People Who Didn't Change the World, is a very enjoyable read, and explains the shear pulling power of these moving paintings in the pre-film age.