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Panorama.
Name given to several forms of large-scale pictorial entertainment that enjoyed widespread popularity in the 19th century. Although the word continues in common usage, denoting a comprehensive view or survey, the type of exhibition for which it was coined survives in only a handful of examples, most of which are from the last decades of the 19th century. The term was devised for a 360° view painted on the inside of a large cylinder and viewed from a platform at its centre. The exhibition was invented, and indeed patented, in 1787 by Robert Barker (1739–1806), an Irish-born artist working in Edinburgh. His first 360° painting was of Edinburgh, exhibited in the Scottish capital in 1787 and in London in 1788. Barker originally called his invention ‘la nature à coup d’oeil’, but in advertisements for a view of London shown in 1791 he adopted ‘panorama’, from the Greek words for ‘all’ and ‘view’, as more expressive of the character of his art form.
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