Drawing the chariot of Bacchus/Dionysus, fighting with Christian martyrs, in a Paris zoo, or torrential rain in a tropical storm, or being hunted to be turned into a skin.
Rousseau
Although the term didn’t come into use until 1791, panoramic landscapes started earlier, and largely stopped by the end of the 19th century.
Long before any person took to the air, artists were already imagining World Views of major land battles and the countryside around them.
From Blake onwards, dreams often take over the whole view, with the dreamer the only link to reality. Examples from Blake, Rossetti, Hodler and others.
City streets grew a lethal mixture of horse-drawn vehicles, trams, buses, and a few motor cars. But above them flew the pioneer aviators.
When Constable’s ‘Hay Wain’ won a gold medal at the Paris Salon in 1824, it inspired the foundation of the Barbizon School, and led to Impressionism.
From panoramas to wide-angle views, the optical effects of Naturalist paintings, depth-of-field effects, and loss of depth through a telescope.
From an elevated viewpoint, finely detailed, great depth, figures and buildings tiny in the immensity of the view, far distant horizon – it’s a World View.
It was Vincent van Gogh who first showed rain streaks, in a painting made just a few days before his death. They’ve since become a standard visual device.
Dreams painted by more modern artists, from William Blake to Paul Nash. These tend to become progressively harder to read.
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