Scenic Perspectivism

For Wednesday, read Theatre Histories, pages 166-172, which talks about the relationship between the development of single-point perspective for scenic design and the development of aristocratic and monarchical government. Single-point perspective was developed by Italian painters in the 14th and 15th centuries, enabling them to create convincing renderings of three-dimensional space within two-dimensional drawings. Sebastiano Serlio innovated applications of these techniques for the stage. The techniques subsequently spread throughout renaissance Europe and beyond. For example, Inigo Jones brought the techniques back to Jacobean England, inspiring developments in court entertainments that looked very different from what was going on at the Globe and other public theatres.

A collection of Serlio drawings: http://rubens.anu.edu.au/htdocs/bytype/arch.sources/serlio/.

And here's a page from the British National Portrait Gallery with discussion of single-point perspective and a few theatrical images by Inigo Jones about halfway down the page: http://www.npg.org.uk/live/perspective.asp

And here's a video that traces the development of these stage technologies (with emphasis on works by several members of the Italian Bibiena family in the late 17th and early 18th centuries). Note the brief segment showing a scene change at the Drottningholm Court Theatre, a beautiful 18th century theatre whose elaborate machinery still works:




As your text points out, the development of perspectival scenography was not simply about making theatre imagery more "realistic". It was about turning the theatre into a place where the expanding realms being brought under the control of European rulers and scientific progress could be represented for the enjoyment of the rulers themselves. Though our modern proscenium stage is certainly related to ancient Greek and Roman spaces, it was developed during this period to facilitate stage imagery that would be "framed" just like perspectival painting, and which presumed a "best" seat. "The implicit visual demand on the other spectators in the auditorium, of course, was to imagine how the scene looked from the prince's or duke's point of view." (167) This basic condition of perspectival stages is still with us, which is why, for most proscenium productions, the best (and most expensive) seats are in the center, midway down the orchestra seating.

Think about how the perspectival stage differs from other theatrical spaces you've seen or learned about. How does the perspectival stage shape the experience of the audience differently than thrust, arena or amphitheatre stages? What does it have to do with the development of early modern society and culture? Does perspectival scenography have an implicit politics? What does it have to do with the expansion of European political influence and global empire?