Source: Letter from John Constable to Bishop John Fisher, 30 September 1823, in C.R. Leslie, Memoirs of the Life of John Constable, esq., R.A., composed chiefly of his letters (London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1845, 2nd ed.), pp. 115-116
Text: September 30th. My Dear Fisher … I was at the private view of the Diorama; it is in part a transparency; the spectator is in a dark chamber, and it is very pleasing, and has great illusion. It is without the pale of the art, because its object is deception. The art pleases by reminding, not by deceiving. The place was filled with foreigners, and I seemed to be in a cage of magpies.
Comments: John Constable (1776-1837) was an English landscape painter. He enjoyed a long friendship with John Fisher, Bishop of Salisbury. The passage above comes from a letter written by Constable to Fisher. The Diorama was a visual spectacle presented in an elaborate theatre, able to accommodate around 350 people. The audience would viewed a large-scale landscape painting on a screen 70ftx45ft whose appearance would alter through the manipulation of lighting and scenic effects. A turntable would then rotate the audience around to view a second painting. The Diorama premiered in Paris in 1822, and opened in London at Regent’s Park on 29 September 1823 in a venue designed by Augustus Pugin (father of the architect of the same name). Constable therefore attended its London premiere.
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