Abstract
Representing Paris: History and Actuality at the London Panoramas
This paper explores questions related to the representation of
history and actuality, in all its possible senses, at the popular panoramas
of the early nineteenth century. Using London and Paris as central examples
(both were key cities for the development of the panorama), it considers the
importance of the panorama as a medium for conveying certain kinds of visual
knowledge—amenable to new regimes of description—and as a form closely
linked to the self-representation of the urban metropolis. Focusing also on
the relationship between image and text, between the panoramic images and the
pamphlets that accompanied them, it addresses the problematic status of the popular appeal of historical and contemporary events as subjects for
the panorama—subjects that engaged both a powerful desire to see and know
things as they are (or were) and an equally powerful element of delusory (or
illusory) representation.