diorama

diorama

1. a miniature three-dimensional scene, in which models of figures are seen against a background

2. a picture made up of illuminated translucent curtains, viewed through an aperture

3. a museum display, as of an animal, of a specimen in its natural setting

4. Films a scene produced by the rearrangement of lighting effects

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

Diorama

A large painting, or series of paintings, intended for exhibition in a darkened room in a manner that produces an appearance of reality created by optical illusions; a building in which such paintings are exhibited.

Illustrated Dictionary of Architecture Copyright © 2012, 2002, 1998 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Diorama

 

(1) A painting in which an image is reproduced on a specially illuminated translucent material.

(2) A more contemporary use of the word refers to a type of painting in which a filmlike picture, drawn vertically across the inner surface of a semicircular subframe, is combined with an object plane situated in front of it (for example, stage settings, material objects, and various structures). Designed for artificial lighting, large dioramas are set up in specially constructed buildings. In Dioramas, as in panoramas, natural representation (primarily battle scenes) attains great illusory effects. The first diorama was created in 1822 by L. J. Daguerre in Paris; Daguerre’s invention won popular acclaim during the 19th century.

The most significant Soviet diorama is The May 7, 1944, Assault on Mount Sapun. Other dioramas are Assault on Perekop (1961; artists, M. I. Samsonov, M. A. Anan’ev, and V. P. Fel’dman; Central Museum of the Armed Forces of the USSR, Moscow), The Assault of the Ochakov Fortress by Russian Troops in 1788 (1970, artist, M. I. Samsonov; A. V. Suvorov Military and Historical Museum in Ochakov), and The 1905 Uprising in Perm’ (1970; artists E. I. Danilevskii and M. A. Anan’ev; Perm’).

REFERENCE

Petiopavlovskii, V. Iskusstvo panoram i dioram. Kiev, 1965.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

diorama

1. A large painting, or a series of paintings, intended for exhibition to spectators in a darkened room in a manner to produce by optical illusions an appearance of reality.

2. A building in which such paintings are exhibited.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture and Construction. Copyright © 2003 by McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.