Diorama

A diorama is a partially three dimensional model of a landscape typically showing historical events, nature scenes, cityscapes, etc. for purposes of education or entertainment. The term was coined by Louis Daguerre in 1822, for a kind of rotating display. Frank M. Chapman, a curator at the American Museum of Natural History during the late 19th and early 20th century, helped popularize the style commonly seen today.

Related Topics:
Louis Daguerre - Frank M. Chapman - American Museum of Natural History

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Dioramas typically will use a tilted plane to represent what would otherwise be a level surface, a painted background of distant objects, and often employ false perspective, carefully modifying the scale of objects placed on the plane to reinforce the illusion through depth perception of viewing a larger space—representations of objects (of identical real-world size) placed further from the observer are smaller than those closer. Often the distant painted background or sky will be painted upon a continuous curved surface so that the viewer is not distracted by corners, seams, or edges. All of these techniques are means of presenting a reasonably realistic view of a large scene in a compact space. A photograph or single eye view of such a diorama can be especially convincing since in this case there is no distraction by the binocular perception of depth.

Related Topics:
Illusion - Depth perception - Binocular perception

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One of the largest dioramas ever created was a model of the entire state of California built for the San Francisco World Fair and that for a long time was installed in San Francisco's Ferry Building.

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More typical are the dioramas used to present mounted ("stuffed") animals, birds, and simulated plants to form a realistic representation of the animals where they are found in nature. These may usually be seen in the natural history museums found in most large cities.

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Miniature dioramas are used to represent scenes from historic events (e.g., tin soldiers arranged in a display depicting a famous battle). A typical example of this type are the dioramas to be seen at the Norges Hjemmefrontmuseum (Norwegian Resistance Museum) in Oslo, Norway.

Related Topics:
Tin soldier - Battle - Norges Hjemmefrontmuseum - Norwegian Resistance Museum - Oslo - Norway

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Also the landscapes built around model railways are dioramas.

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See also: Nativity scene

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