Booth Shares Title

This is the first major work dedicated to retracing the history of dioramas and their influence on the leading artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. Primarily known as an educational tool in natural history museums, the diorama is an ‘illusion machine’, more than two centuries old, through which a viewer can see scenes and landscapes in three dimensions. Presenting 100 amply-illustrated ‘historical’ dioramas, as well as the secrets of their making, this book places dioramas back into perspective, in a wider chronological context, including current issues, such as environmental awareness and the visual heritage of colonialism. With an extensive iconography, including more than 100 works from the 16th to the 21st centuries, as well as interviews with artists, previously-unpublished texts written by specialists and pertinent historical texts, Dioramas is an unprecedented work on the subject.