Optical prints & zograscopes collection
Perspective prints (optical prints)
In the 18th and early 19th-century perspective prints or optical prints were very popular, and produced in Paris, Augsburg, London and Italy. They are seen as pre-cinema objects and did bring foreign places,
Perspective views were produced from the early eighteenth century to the beginning of the nineteenth, the greatest number of them probably between c. 1740-1790.
Names for these perspective prints vary more in Britain than on the continent. Catalogs produced by British print publishers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries give a number of alternative titles.
In his catalog of 1717 Henry Overton I calls them 'prospects', a term also used in the 1731 John Bowle's catalog: 'Prospects neatly graved each on one large Sheet of Paper'.
In the Henry Overton II catalog of 1754 merely mentions 'Views, each on One Sheet of Large Paper', a much fuller description appears in the Carrington Bowles catalog of 1784: 'Sets of fine prints. Perspective views. The following Sets consists of a large Variety of perspective Views, containing remarkable Views of Shipping, eminent Cities, Towns, Royal Palaces, Noblemen and Gentlemans Seats and Gardens in Great Britain, France and Holland, Views of Venice, Florence, Ancient and Modern Rome, and the most striking public Buildings in and about London.'
Meanwhile, the Laurie and Whittie catalog of 1795 speaks of
- 'Perspective views ... for the Diagonal Mirror; or Optical Machine ... All the preceding Views ... are kept ready Colored for the Show Glass at 2s. each.'
Similarly, Robert Laurie's 1824 catalog lists: 'Perspective views, colored for the Show Glass or Diagonal Mirror . . .'
Zograscope
It was probably the scientific instrument-maker George Adams who coined the term 'Zograscope' to replace all these cumbrous expressions, but the name did not catch on. On the continent, names for the viewing machines and perspective prints were less diverse. In France, where the viewing machine was believed to have originated, the prints were called 'vue d'optique' or 'vue perspective', and the apparatus itself simply 'optique' or 'boîte d'optique'. In Germany, the views were known as 'Guckkastenbild' or 'Guckkastenblatt' (literally looking box sheet'), while the optical machine was called 'Guckkasten'. Meanwhile in Italy 'Realetti Prospettive' were viewed in 'Camere Ottiche', whilst in Holland an 'opticaprent' was looked at in an 'optica'.
From Optical Prints to Ukie to UkiyoeThe Adoption and Adaptation of Western Linear Perspective in Japan
In the 9th month of 1783, Shiba Kōkan (司馬江漢, 1747-1818) proudly launched a print depicting Edo’s main river, the Sumidagawa, with people walking on its bank; the entrance and precincts of the Mimeguri shrine are seen in the distance. This was the first etching made in Japan in some one hundred years. The technique, first introduced into Japan by Portuguese Jesuit priests, had been totally forgotten after the expulsion of the Christians in 1612. Kōkan informs us in the following terms about the origins of his innovation:1Dutch books contain illustrations so realistic that we can still understand the contents simply by studying the pictures. This fact alone proves the brilliance and superiority of Western art.
By employing shading, Western artists can represent convex and concave surfaces, sun and shade, distance, depth and shallowness. Their pictures are models of reality and thus can serve the same function as the written word, often more effectively.
2And he continues:No one in Japan knew the proper method of making a copperplate. I therefore turned to the formula given in a book by a Hollander named Boisu. I consulted with Ōtsuki Gentaku [1757-1827], who assisted me in translating the text, so that I could make copperplate pictures in Japan. In 1783, I made the f irst etching.
3Thus we know that Kōkan found the key to the reinvention of copperplate engraving in Egbert Buys’s Nieuw en volkomen woordenboek van konsten en weetenschappen (1769-1778), which indeed contains a good and detailed descrip-tion of the technique of etching.4In spite of Kōkan’s brave efforts, the view of Mimeguri must – quite understandably – be regarded as only a poor f irst trial.
He continued his experiments in the medium with varying success, but only some twenty years later can we speak of true mastery of etching in Japan. This was achieved not by Kōkan but by his older contemporary Aōdō Denzen (亜欧堂田善, 1745-1822). Denzen’s etched night scene of two palanquin bearers on the Nihon Dike, leading to Edo’s pleasure district of the Yoshiwara, Yoshiwara dote no kei, displays a command of etching, with a suggestion of mezzotint, comparable to that of Piranesi in his Carceriseries of 1750.
The difference is that Piranesi was drawing on two centuries of European experience in the art of etching, while the Japanese artists had been at it for a mere twenty years.
For the complete text see Mediating Netherlandish Art and Material Culture in Asia, Chapter 11, by Matti Forrer.