Friday, November 13, 2009

Welcome,

About a year ago I began my web site as a way to share images and information about an array of pre cinema devices and representations of those devices in paintings, drawings, and prints. As the year progressed, I decided to add animation to the site so visitors could not only see the devices but also get some of the pleasure of the actual visual experience.

I intend to use this blog to alert those interested in my site to new items and additional animations. I also plan to share information about meetings and gatherings of people interested in visual entertainment.

My site is currently focused on antiques. However there are many artists who are using the same techniques to make their own art and I will share some of that work here as well.

I just returned from a fabulous few days in Paris. The main purpose of my visit was to go to a meeting of the Magic Lantern Society of Great Britain being held at the La Cinémathèque Francaise (51 rue de Bercy). It was a great meeting with a programme full of shows and presentations. The highlight of the weekend was a visit to the special exhibition at the Cinémathèque entitled Magic Lanterns and Painted Film: four centuries of cinema. It is an incredible exhibition, one that should not be missed. There seemed to be an endless array of incredible lanterns and slides of every size and shape. It was hard not to become visually overloaded. I had to leave the exhibition twice and come back so I could absorb more. Everyone was asking what did you think were the most special items. Too many is the real answer. Some of my favorites were: the three Fantascopes, the array of 18th century slides, and a working model of Reynaud’s Théâtre optique. The exhibition runs until March 28, 2010. If you can’t make it you can get a copy of the extensive and well-documented catalogue.









I thought I would add a new page to my web entitled peepshow other. It is a titled other because there is no easy categorization of the objects contained in this section. All of them have some representation of a peepshow. It is remarkable how familiar the peepshow was and how artists decided to decorate different items using the peepshow as a motif.