A report on my research visit to Choir of a Gothic Church, the only remaining original Daguerre/Bouton diorama, donated by Daguerre to the church of Bry-sur-Marne (near Paris) in 1842. The diorama was restored in 2013, with funding by the Getty Foundation. Visited October 2019.
The diorama.
Louis Daguerre (1787 – 1851) was trained as an architect and panorama painter, and first gained attention for his use of illusionist effects in theatre stage design, before moving on to develop the first incarnation of the Diorama theatre in collaboration with painter Charles-Marie Bouton (1781 – 1853). Later on, the entrepreneurial Daguerre became known for his signature photographic technique.
Diorama theatres were mechanical multimedia shows, predating the cinematic experience. Bouton and Daguerre created enormous, semi-translucent paintings that were animated – came ‘to life’ – by using light- and sound effects. The audience was seated in a darkened space, and the realistic scenes – landscapes, interiors – changed from day to nightime before their eyes, or showed the aftermath of disasters. Each show was about 15 minutes in lenght, and provided an unprecedented sense of immersion. Read an account here for a full contemporary review.
In 1842, Daguerre – either with or without help of Bouton – installed a diorama show in the otherwise unremarkable little church of Saint Gervais Saint Protais, of the suburban Paris village Bry-sur-Marne, where he lived. The Diorama transforms the church’s modest choir into a monumental gothic cathedral.
To accommodate the Diorama’s backstage of pulleys and ropes, an extension to the choir was built, and a monumental painting replaced the church’s former back wall. The painting is partly translucent, for example at the windows in the depiction. It is lit by a skylight above the alcove, and by additional light effects in the front and the back of the painting, that help to simulate a day/night sequence. Originally, those light effects were oil lamps, which explains why so few Diorama theatres have survived: they often burned down.
The 2013 restoration recreated the Diorama show with (electric) lights that are programmed to a sequence mimicking the day/night transitions of the original ‘animated painting’. At the entrance of the church, the visitor pushes a button, which sets the sequence in motion.
My visit took place during a sunny afternoon. The church has glass doors, with a lot of light coming through while reflections on passing cars at first spoiled the experience. After the exterior wooden doors were closed, the sequence’s visibility improved. It still seemed to have some problems: one of the lights promptly turned on and off, instead of gradually – I doubt it was meant to do that.
The sequence’s length was unclear to me: it could be just below 2 minutes, but it also could be longer, or even random. The first ten seconds or so nothing seems to happen, and some of the light transitions are so subtle, they are difficult to make out. The sunny afternoon conditions outside did not help.
Still, it is easy to imagine the magical impression this piece of religious high-tech theatre must have made on the church-goers.
The Diorama is not confined to the painting itself, but spills over in the church. It is framed by painted, faux-marble neo-Renaissance side panels with statues. These are all part of the stage – the architecture of the actual church is fairly sober. Before the restoration in 2013, barely any of the illusionary depth and simulated grandeur of the wall and choir was left.
Below an 1852 illustration of the diorama, and an early 20th century postcard in honor of Daguerre. By this time, Bouton was completely overshadowed by this partner’s marketing success, both in dioramas and in photography.
Over time, the illusionist effect of Choir of a Gothic Church diminished. The painting degraded, and the light sequence was unused. Below, a photo taken around 1950. The marbled walls have no paint left or were painted over, and the altar is taking up most of the space. The painting is still visible, but reduced to decor.
At the second Vatican Council of 1962 the Catholic church decided to modernize. It meant abandoning Latin as its principal mass language, but also architectural changes. It led to the destruction of countless historical altars and church interiors. In the Netherlands, the interior reforms are sometimes referred to as ‘the second Iconoclasm’, or ‘wreckovation’.
In Saint Gervais Saint Protais, it meant that the alcoves on both sides of the Diorama were replaced with glass stained windows, the gothic elements – including the pulpit – were removed, and the seating was updated.
The Tourist Service of Bry-sur-Marne was so kind to provide me with a pdf – originally a Powerpoint presentation – concerning the restoration of the diorama. It includes some pre-restoration pictures of the church.
A portable Diorama
Below: the front- and backside of a recently rediscovered diorama-painting by Daguerre and Charles-Marie Bouton. The painting is only 92 x 152cm and framed, and therefor lacks the real immersive experience of the life sized illusion of the Bry-sur-Marne installment.
When the Parisian Galerie Perrin bought this atmospheric painting of the Pisa Cathedral, they knew there was something unusual about it. “There’s a small hole in the canvas,” Mandy Tutin told artnet News. “We thought, ‘this is not normal, this isn’t an accidental hole.’”
After careful research, they realized they had stumbled upon a Louis Daguerre (1787–1851) diorama, a unique form of painting devised by the artist and inventor in 1822, nearly two decades before he invented the daguerreotype. Working with painter Charles Marie Bouton (1781–1853), he crafted canvases with elements painted on both sides, so that the work shifts in appearance under different lighting conditions. He showed works such as this one in his custom-built Paris venue, called Diorama.
“People went as if it were the cinema,” Tutin said. “It’s like a little movie.”
Nearly two centuries later, the effect is still stunning, as the scene miraculously shifts from day to night, with a figure holding a torch appearing in the center of the canvas, the flame aligned with the once-mysterious hole. The effect, explained Tutin, “is a reflection between the light and the transparency of the canvas.”
The piece is for sale for €850,000. “This is unique in the world, the very last one in private hands,” Tutin added.
Hippolyte Sébron
Daguerre, though by far the most famous diorama-producer – was not the best painter. He was considered more of an inventor. His partner Bouton was widely appreciated for his much more sophisticated paintings.
Sébron (1801 – 1879) was Daguerre’s ‘right hand’. After Daguerre got interested in photography, Sébron took over most of the painting, though he remains out of the spotlights. Sébron perfected the double-effect diorama: canvasses that would would show hidden elements when lit in certain ways. These canvasses temporarily saved the diorama business from bankruptcy, since the crowd would grow tired of the standard diorama-formula: a landscape (Swiss Alps, for instance), followed by an interior (a church or cathedral).
Sébron claims to have painted fourteen monumental illusionist diorama paintings.
Source: Erkki Huhtamo, ‘Illusions in Motion’, MIT press, 2013, p. 147-148.