The Sedan panorama
The panorama was the most advanced technique of illusionism at that time — before film, cinema and computer imagery. It was the most powerful medium, as we know from many statements from the time. Many sources testify that people began to feel nauseous simply by viewing depictions of scenes at sea, or battle scenes that appeared so suggestive that people expected to be trampled by horses that were merely painted well.
Anton von Werner's “The Battle of Sedan”, a gigantic canvas that measured 2300 square metres, was undoubtedly the most expensive picture of its time and viewed by millions.
The opening ceremony at the Alexander Square In Berlin in 1883, on the anniversary of the Battle of Sedan, was a political event, attended by the Kaiser, Bismarck, Moltke, and practically the entire power elite, and was front-page news in all the major newspapers the next day. In front of the photorealistic battle painting was a ‹faux terrain›—a space with three-dimensional objects, such as bushes, boulders and fieldwork tools, as well as real weapons and cardboard figures. Rousing marching music from an orchestrion and the compelling appeal of the soldier's perspective additionally enhanced the involvement of the observer. From all directions, this image apparatus was concentrated and fixed physiologically on the observer with the precision of photorealistic illusionism. In this way, the Sedan panorama represented the state of the art of contemporary technical skill in the art of illusion and knowledge of the physiology of sensory perception, as formulated by Hermann von Helmholtz in a series of lectures «On the Relation of Optics to Painting,» 1871.
Today´s viewing habits are so fundamentally different from those of the nineteenth century, it is almost impossible to imagine the profound effect that static panorama images had on contemporary audiences. In the first few moments, the brightly painted scene appeared so overwhelming that many visitors said they felt as though they were in a real battle. The newspaper «Neue Preussische Zeitung,» for example, wrote: “The visitor is gripped immediately, he is taken completely by surprise and instinctively holds back. One is afraid of being trampled by the horses' hooves and feels the urge to concentrate on going backwards. Swirling dust and smoke seem to fill the air. Trumpets blare, drums beat, drums roll… .”
The famous Sedan panorama was burned during a bombing raid in the attic of the National Gallery in Berlin.
