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Phantasmagoria

Phantasmagoria (American pronunciation), alternatively fantasmagorie and/or fantasmagoria was a form of horror theatre that (among other techniques) used one or more magic lanterns to project frightening images, such as skeletons, demons, and ghosts, onto walls, smoke, or semi-transparent screens, typically using rear projection to keep the lantern out of sight. Mobile or portable projectors were used, allowing the projected image to move and change size on the screen, and multiple projecting devices allowed for quick switching of different images. In many shows, the use of spooky decoration, total darkness, (auto-)suggestive verbal presentation, and sound effects were also key elements. Some shows added a variety of sensory stimulation, including smells and electric shocks. Such elements as required fasting, fatigue (late shows), and drugs have been mentioned as methods of making sure spectators would be more convinced of what they saw. The shows started under the guise of actual séances in Germany in the late 18th century and gained popularity through most of Europe (including Britain) throughout the 19th century.

For other uses, see Phantasmagoria (disambiguation).

The word "phantasmagoria" has also been commonly used to indicate changing successions or combinations of fantastic, bizarre, or imagined imagery.[1]

Etymology[edit]

From French phantasmagorie, from Ancient Greek φάντασμα (phántasma, “ghost”) + possibly either αγορά (agorá, “assembly, gathering”) + the suffix -ia, or ἀγορεύω (agoreúō, “to speak publicly”).


Paul Philidor (also known simply as "Phylidor") announced his show of ghost apparitions and evocation of the shadows of famous people as Phantasmagorie in the Parisian periodical Affiches, annonces et avis divers of December 16, 1792. About two weeks earlier the term had been the title of a letter by a certain "A.L.M.", published in Magazin Encyclopédique. The letter also promoted Phylidor's show.[2] Phylidor had previously advertised his show as Phantasmorasi in Vienna in March 1790.[3]


The English variation Phantasmagoria was introduced as the title of M. De Philipsthal's show of optical illusions and mechanical pieces of art in London in 1801.[4] De Philipsthal and Philidor are believed to have been the same person.

's 1420 drawing showed a lantern projecting a winged female demon.

Giovanni Fontana

warned in his 1646 edition of Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae that impious people could abuse his stenographic mirror projection system by painting a picture of the devil on the mirror and projecting it into a dark place to force people to carry out wicked deeds.[10] His pupil Gaspar Schott later turned this into the idea that it could be easily used to keep godless people from committing many sins, if a picture of the devil was painted on the mirror and thrown onto a dark place.[11]

Huygens' 1659 sketches for a projection of Death taking off his head

Athanasius Kircher

In 1659 Dutch inventor drew several phases of Death removing his skull from his neck and putting it back again, sketches meant to be projected with "convex lenses and a lamp".[12] This lamp later became known as the magic lantern, and the sketches form the oldest known extant documentation of this invention.

Christiaan Huygens

One of Christiaan Huygens' contacts wrote to him in 1660: "The good Kircher is always performing tricks with the magnet at the gallery of the ; if he would know about the invention of the Lantern he would surely frighten the cardinals with specters."[13]

Collegium Romanum

Thomas Rasmussen Walgensten's 1664 lantern show prompted Pierre Petit to call the device "laterne de peur" (lantern of fear). In 1670 Walgensten projected an image of Death at the court of .[14]

King Frederick III of Denmark

In 1668, wrote about a type of magic lantern installation: "It produces effects not only very delightful, but to such as know not the contrivance very wonderful; so that spectators not well versed in optics, that should see the various apparitions and disappearances, the motions, changes and actions that may this way be represented, would readily believe them to be supernatural and miraculous."[15]

Robert Hooke

In the 1671 second edition of Kircher's Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae., the magic lantern was illustrated with projections of Death and a person in purgatory or hellfire. Kircher did suggest in his book that an audience would be more astonished by the sudden appearance of images if the lantern would be hidden in a separate room, so the audience would be ignorant of the cause of their appearance.[17] According to legend Kircher secretly used the lantern at night to project the image of Death on windows of apostates to scare them back into church,[18] but this is probably based on Gaspar Schott's suggestion (see above).

[16]

In 1672, French physician and numismatist was very impressed with the lantern show that "Monsieur Grundler" (Griendel) performed for him in Nuremberg: "He even stirs the shadows at his pleasure, without the aid of the underworld. (...) My esteem for his knowledge could not prevent my fright, I believed there never was a greater magician than him in the world. I experienced paradise, I experienced hell, I experienced specters. I have some constancy, but I would have willingly given one half to save the other." After these apparitions Griendel showed other subjects in this performance, including birds, a palace, a country-wedding and mythical scenes.[19] Patin's elaborate description of an early lantern show seems to be the oldest to contain more than frightening pictures.

Charles Patin

In other media[edit]

Before the rise of phantasmagoria, interest in the fantastic was apparent in ghost stories. This can be seen in the many examples of ghost stories printed in the 18th century, including Admiral Vernon's ghost; being a full true and particular Account as how a Warlike apparition appeared last Week to the Author, Clad all in Scarlet, And discoursed to him concerning the Present State of Affairs (1758). In this tale, the author's reaction to the ghost he sees is much like that of the audience members at the phantasmagoria shows. He says that he is "thunderstruck", and that "astonishment seized me. My bones shivered within me. My flesh trembled over me. My lips quaked. My mouth opened. My hands expanded. My knees knocked together. My blood grew chilly, and I froze with terror."[37]


French painters of the time, including Ingres and Girodet, derived ideas for paintings from the phantasmagoria, and its influence spread as far as J. M. W. Turner.[38]


Walter Benjamin was fascinated by the phantasmagoria and used it as a term to describe the experience of the Arcades in Paris. In his essays, he associated phantasmagoria with commodity culture and its experience of material and intellectual products. In this way, Benjamin expanded upon Marx's statement on the phantasmagorical powers of the commodity.[39]


Early stop trick films developed by Georges Méliès most clearly parallel the early forms of phantasmagoria. Trick films include transformations, superimpositions, disappearances, rear projections, and the frequent appearance of ghosts and apparent decapitations.[40] Modern-day horror films often take up many of the techniques and motifs of stop trick films, and phantasmagoria is said to have survived in this new form.


Maria Jane Jewsbury produced a volume entitled Phantasmagoria, or Sketches of Life and Literature, published by Hurst Robinson & Co, in 1825. This consists of a number of essays on various subjects together with poetry. The whole is dedicated to William Wordsworth.


Phantasmagoria is also the title of a poem in seven cantos by Lewis Carroll that was published by Macmillan & Sons in London in 1869, about which Carroll had much to say. He preferred that the title of the volume be found at the back, saying in a correspondence with Macmillan, "it is picturesque and fantastic—but that is about the only thing I like…" He also wished that the volume would cost less, thinking that the 6 shillings was about 1 shilling too much to charge.[41]


Phantasmagoria's influence on Disney can be found in the countless effects throughout the themed lands and attractions at the theme parks but are likely most memorable in the practical and projection effects of the Haunted Mansion (at Disneyland, Walt Disney World and Tokyo Disneyland), and Phantom Manor (at Disneyland Paris), as well live shows such as Fantasmic (at Disneyland and Disney's Hollywood Studios), which feature film/video projections on water screens.


A series of photographs taken from 1977 to 1987 by photographer and model Cindy Sherman are described as portraying the phantasmagoria of the female body. Her photographs include herself as the model, and the progression of the series as a whole presents the phantasmagoric space projected both onto and into the female body.[42]


The 1995 survival-horror video game Phantasmagoria is partly based upon these performances. In the game, several flashbacks are shown to fictional phantasmagorias performed by the magician Zoltan "Carno" Carnovasch. However, unlike the real shows, his are much more graphic and violent in nature and involve actual demons instead of projected ones.

In modern times[edit]

A few modern theatrical troupes in the United States and United Kingdom stage phantasmagoria projection shows, especially at Halloween.


From February 15 to May 1, 2006, the Tate Britain staged "The Phantasmagoria" as a component of its show "Gothic Nightmares: Fuseli, Blake and the Romantic Imagination." It recreated the content of the 18th and 19th century presentations, and successfully evoked their tastes for horror and fantasy.[43]


In 2006, David J. Jones discovered the precise site of Robertson's show at the Capuchin convent.[44]

Grand Guignol

History of film

Limelight

Pepper's Ghost

Castle, Terry (1995). The Female Thermometer: 18th-Century Culture and the Invention of the Uncanny. Oxford University Press.  0-19-508097-1.

ISBN

(2007). "Remember the Phantasmagoria! Illusion Politics of the Eighteenth Century and its Multimedial Afterlife", Oliver Grau (Ed.): Media Art Histories, MIT Press/Leonardo Books, 2007.

Grau, Oliver

Guyot, Edme-Gilles (1755). Nouvelles Recréations Physiques et Mathématiques translated by Dr. W. Hooper in London (1st ed. 1755)

"Robertson" () (1830–34). Mémoires récréatifs, scientifiques et anecdotiques d'un physicien-aéronaute.

Robert, Étienne-Gaspard

David J. Jones(2011). 'Gothic Machine: Textualities, Pre-Cinematic Media and Film in Popular Visual Culture, 1670–1910', Cardiff: University of Wales Press  978-0708324073

ISBN

David J Jones (2014). 'Sexuality and the Gothic Magic Lantern, Desire, Eroticism and Literary Visibilities from Byron to Bram Stoker', Palgrave Macmillan,  9781137298911.

ISBN

Douglas, Evelyn. Phantasmagoria. 1st ed. Vol. 1. Chelmsford: J. H. Clarke, 1887. Print.

Barber, Theodore. Phantasmagorical Wonders: The Magic Lantern Ghost Show in Nineteenth-Century America. 2nd ed. Vol. 3. N.p.: Indiana UP, 1989. Print.

Media related to Phantasmagoria at Wikimedia Commons

The dictionary definition of phantasmagoria at Wiktionary

Mervyn Heard's "Phantasmagoria: The Secret Life of the Magic Lantern"

Adventures in Cybersound: "Robertson's Phantasmagoria"

Mervyn Heard's short history of the Phantasmagoria

Visual Media site with much pre-cinema information

Another short history, with more description of Philipstal's shows in London

Burns, Paul An Illustrated Chronology

The History of the Discovery of Cinematography

Utsushi-e (Japanese Phantasmagoria)

Esther Leslie on Benjamin's Arcades Project

Precinema Museum, Italy. Collection includes original Phantasmagoria magic lanterns and slides

The Museum of Precinema