The Circus and the Magic Lantern: A Portfolio of Hand-Painted Mechanical Magic Lantern Slides

Abstract

The development of the magic lantern and the circus parallel each other. Magic lantern culture and the circus evolved slowly during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as showmen and performers tramped across Europe. In the nineteenth century, while the itinerant tradition continued, the magic lantern and the circus became a part of urban theatrical culture as entrepreneurs developed elaborate phantasmagoria exhibitions and circuses incorporated diverse acts into their shows. Both circuses and magic lantern shows developed organised entertainment spaces, mechanical apparatuses and performative conventions through which audiences experienced surprise, wonder and laughter. It is not surprising therefore that they shared iconography. The exaggerated gestures, dexterity and comic repertories of the circus performers made them the ideal subject matter for the animated transformations of mechanical glass slides. This chapter presents a curated selection of these slides drawn from private and public collections. The portfolio of images and sequences in the chapter will be contextualised by a discussion of the evolution of lantern and circus traditions in nineteenth-century colonial Australia, demonstrating connections and divergences between the two modes of entertainment, and their influence on contemporary media technologies.