The Panorama and its Subject
Osamu Maekawa

Introduction

  Let us begin by considering the reasons for approaching the subject of that optical apparatus known as the panorama. It is true that in the history of the media, the panorama is often only mentioned in a passing fashion, as an intermediary between its precursors, the scene painting and townscape, and its successors, the diorama and the film. However, this historically "panoramic" view presents a problem in that it does not permit us to recognise the characteristics unique to the panorama. The panorama is indeed a style of painting that has a unique reality effect but, as to painting technique, it is not any more advanced than its precursors. In fact, it involves, at most, a third-rate painting technique. Moreover, it is undeniable that, when compared to its successors, the panorama is essentially lacking in movement. In the context of representation of movement, the panorama is but a transient stage eventually leading to the film. Considered from another point of view, that is, in the light of the use of the most recent architectural techniques, the situation is hardly any different. The construction of the panorama involves iron and glass; however, its external appearance remains pseudo-classic, and therefore, suppresses all potential for new techniques. In other words, the panorama, either as an art form or as a technique or as a cultural industry, is neither one thing nor the other -- a hybrid born between art and technique, with only a secondary value in either field.

  To be sure, there have already been attempts to interpret the panorama with regard to the formation of the gaze particular to that time period. One example of such an interpretation is the explanation that the panorama served as a space within which the independent citizens of the nineteenth century were able to secure for their own the "all-seeing gaze". However, such an interpretation, generally speaking, is very often based upon a perspectivist paradigm, as is the case with the evolutionary approach mentioned above. It is possible, nonetheless, that there is yet another aspect to the panorama that passes unnoticed by such an approach. This aspect deals with the process in which the knowing subject itself, overlooking everything at the centre of the panorama, does not only calmly cast its regard on its objects but also, loosing its footing, becomes caught up in a more fundamental reorganisation of perception. In other words, the matter involves a thorough transformation of the perception of the subject. This paper will attempt to establish a picture of this unique aspect of the panorama by means of the following measures. First, in order to establish a basic understanding, a general overview of the panorama will be given. Next, the problem of the relation between the panorama and modernization, which forms the basis of typical theories on the panorama, will be discussed, using several precedential views as a starting point. Finally, the outstanding characteristics of panoramic perception will be discussed from a slightly different angle, with a view to modifying this modernist interpretation.

1. The Panorama of the Nineteenth Century

◇Overview of the Panorama(1)

  To give a general overview of the characteristics in structure of the panorama, let us look at the description given by Robert Barker upon applying for a patent in 1787. According to this description, the panorama consisted of a large cylindrical painting and a circular building to contain the painting in. Judging from the standard established around 1830, the height of the canvas should have been around 14 m, the circumference around 140 m, and the diameter around 40 m. The observer would pass through the front entrance into the entrance hall of this huge building and then through an underground passage. As the eyes of the observer grew accustomed to the darkness of the passage, the observer would climb up a spiral staircase and reach a central circular observation platform and there, he would be confronted by the huge canvas stretching before him on all sides.

  The themes of the panorama paintings were rarely imaginative. Rather, nature, town- and cityscapes, battlefields, or historical events (such as the crucifixion of Christ) were the general topics of choice and these were depicted in great detail. The observer would be instantaneously transported to a height from which he would have a birds-eye view of the entire city, or a view of the battle from the general headquarters. Or else, he would be transported into the exotic landscape of some faraway land, or into the midst of some historical spectacle in the distant past. As a result, the observer, with an almost sickening dizziness, would find himself suddenly drawn into the picture before his eyes.

  This illusionary effect of the panorama, that is, its pseudo-realistic effect, was generated by means of the following three mechanisms. The first of these was control of lighting. Occasionally, artificial lighting would be used for the panorama, but generally, the main method used involved indirect lighting by natural light. The sunlight would enter the room through the glass windows set along the outer perimeter of the roof and would be cast upon the canvas only after being refracted and diffused by a large umbrella hanging above the observation platform. As a result, the canvas would be illuminated by a dim and cold light, almost as if inside an aquarium, creating a unique sense of reality. Another factor that strengthened the illusionary effect of the panorama was the doughnut-shaped space between the canvas and the observation platform. In this space were set such objects as, for example, real trees and stage sets of a cabin or of people, allowing for a smooth transition for the eye from these three-dimensional sets to the two-dimensional painting on the screen. The third factor contributing to the panorama's effect was, as was the case for the Kinetoscope, the limitation of the field of view. The overhead umbrella and the circular passageway hid from view the upper and lower portions of the canvas respectively and thereby restricted the vertical view of the observer. At the same time however, this restriction of view gave an impression that the scene depicted on the canvas stretched out even farther beyond the upper limits of the canvas itself. Now, let us proceed to a discussion of the gaze anticipated by this optical apparatus, the panorama.   ◇The All-seeing Gaze

  The term panorama corresponds in meaning to the Greek for "all-seeing". At first glance, it might seem that, theoretically speaking, the panoramic view or gaze might have been in existence at any period in history. In other words, one might consider that all that was necessary to generate such a gaze was to have before one's eyes an open view that one could overlook. However, such an understanding would be but a retrospective interpretation based on our present day vision, already too well accustomed to this panoramic method of perception. For example, the following words by Stephan Oettermann may be cited:

"The history of the panorama embodies but one century -- namely, the nineteenth, our present century. There are numerous precursors and successors of the panorama; however, these are meaningless."(2)

  Although we have mentioned that the term panorama was derived from the Greek, it was at the time but a relatively new coinage and not a traditional concept with historical connotations. Rather, the concept of "all-seeing" functioned as part of the process of modernization. What is important, therefore, is to study the role played by the panoramic perception in regard to the formation of the civil society in the nineteenth century. Let us now review the relation between the panoramic gaze and civil society, based on Oettermann's Panorama, which discusses the panorama from such a standpoint.

  The all-seeing gaze of the panorama can also be found in other types of visual experience of the same time period, such as that of the hot-air balloon and the tower. For example, it is said that visitors climbing to the top of the Tower of Munster, a popular place of visit beginning from the end of the eighteenth century, were not themselves the recipients of God's all-seeing gaze but instead, ousting God from his position, obtained for themselves their own gaze, i.e. that of the independent citizen. In other words, to be able to have a panoramic view over everything was a means by which the citizen could assert his own gaze. Such types of visual experience can also be found, for example, in several passages of Goethe's Italian Journeyfaced (3). Here, the subject who, on being with a large, open view, at first experiences fear or anxiety, eventually overcomes these feelings and learns to stand on its own feet, acquiring the gaze with which he can overlook the entire field. Moreover, the fact that the gaze so acquired was not the gaze of a single person but a collective gaze of several brought forth a democratization of the gaze. Oettermann illustrates this by comparing the panorama to the Baroque scene painting. In the scene paintings of the Baroque period, the only point from which one could look out over the entire painting without any distortion was that of the king. In the case of the panorama, on the other hand, thanks to the plurality of the gazes gathered along the perimeter, the citizens could now, in their own right, look over the entire view before them. The many towers and monuments built in the nineteenth century also serve to confirm the fact that not only one but several gazes of equal value had begun to emerge. One might add that this democratic gaze of the citizens also concealed within itself an expansionistic desire. This can be explained through the example of the "horizon", a widely recognised concept at the time. At the time of the emergence of the panorama, the "horizon", or the limiting line at the end of the field of view, was overlapped with the concept of "enlightenment" and it was thought that expansion of the horizon was the true aim of the modern subject.(4)

  Conversely, the panoramic perception served to put into order this horizon itself, which, in expanding, constantly underwent the process of internalizing its alien exterior. In other words, the panoramic gaze addressed the problem of putting under control the gradually expanding city, which at first glance seemed to be disoriented and which, in the literature of the period was often likened to a jungle, or to the sea. Furthermore, as a complementary function to the above, through the nature scene painted on its periphery, the panorama also embraced, in an imaginary fashion, the chaotic city.

  Oettermann, however, argues that there is an aspect to the panorama which is contrary to such an expansive and enlightening gaze. According to him, the panorama was also "an instrument for the liberation and the control of the gaze".(5) Oettermann explains this situation, where the enlightening apparatus designed to liberate the independent subject serves also as a prison binding the prisoner, by comparing two words of the same etymology: panorama and panopticon.(6) The panopticon, a facility designed for full-view supervision, is, with regard to its architectural structure, constructed in the same form as the panorama with glass windows on the outer perimeter used to let in light and a doughnut-shaped space separating the watch tower from the cell. The prisoner in the cell, not being able to see the gaze from the central watchtower, is obliged to internalize the gaze which looks upon him. Oettermann argues that this is "a democratization of God's gaze, through the process of internalization", or a secularization of the gaze. As a matter of fact, there had been plans to apply this apparatus designed by J. Bentham to facilities other than prisons, such as factories and educational institutions. However, the objective of the panopticon was not only such a democratization. The panopticon also aimed, through a purely visual relationship, to adapt each individual to such norms of modern society as discipline, time regulation, and hygiene, that is, to control and to govern the individual. In view of such a control of the gaze, which completely surrenders the observer to a visual relation, functioning in a compulsory way at that, leaving no room for the freedom of the observer, it can be said that the panorama was, as was the panopticon, a facility designed for the training of the gaze. True, one might dispute this comparison by pointing out that the subject of the panorama was positioned differently than that of the panopticon, i.e. that the subject of the panorama stood at the central observation platform instead of on the outer perimeter. However, in order to obtain the all-seeing gaze, the subject of the panorama as such has to vanish and surrender itself completely to the screen.

  This "dialectics of the gaze" concerning the liberation and restriction of the gaze can be further considered to include time as a moment. Here, Dolf Sternberger's Panorama or Views in the 19th Century serves as a point of reference. This title does not only refer to the existence of a large number of panorama buildings in the nineteenth century. By this title, Sternberger also suggests that the nineteenth century was one in which the principle of the panorama played a major part. For example, he writes:

"The view from the European window completely lost its depth. The entire view was but a part of a two-dimensional, painted panoramic world extended on all sides."(7)

  To describe the mode of perception particular to the nineteenth century, Sternberger evokes the view from the window of a railway train. In fact, in an apparatus called the moving panorama, the screen before the observer is, at times, viewed through the window of a train or a ship and rolled at a certain speed so that the observer experiences the sensation that he himself is moving. Here in the panorama was realised the transportation of the body made possible by the new forms of travel. What shocked the observer, moreover, about this view from the train window was that the view rapidly progressing before his eyes had no depth, in other words the observer was stunned by the two-dimensionality of the view.(8) This applied not only to moving panoramas but to the non-moving types of panoramas as well. This is because the panoramas were not only viewed from a single fixed point. The panoramic vision entailed moving about on the watchtower while viewing the images, and therefore, would result in a number of two-dimensional surfaces being linked together with each other, within the perception of such a time sequence. Of course, such a chain of images would, from time to time, become unstable. Therefore, it was essential that the panorama take on the role of making adjustments so as to prevent the track of the gaze from digressing and to keep the succession of images from becoming uncontrollable. It can be said that both the panorama and the railway maintained stability in such movement-based perception by enclosing within a circle the track of the gaze. What is interesting, moreover, is that Sternberger relates this unfolding of a succession of images to a key concept of the nineteenth century, i.e. that of "progress". The unfolding (sich entwickelnde) succession of images coincides with the unfolding of progress.

  However, this expansive and progressive movement of the gaze served to eliminate alienness. In other words, the panorama eliminated the alienness which emerges when one actually experiences a view of a foreign country. Exotic landscapes are projected phantasmagorically on the seamless screen of the panorama. However, the "distance" evoked in such a fashion is not more than something that, one after another, the observer on the observation platform would ultimately appropriate. The alienness is first eliminated and then entrapped within an exteriorless interior. The panorama, therefore, had to always address the problem that, in providing a substitute for the alien experience, true experience was made impossible.

  In this way, Oettermann and Sternberger attempt to interpret the panorama through its relation to the process of modernization. However, their interpretations do not delve any further into the dynamics of perception characteristically realised in this particular medium. For example, could we not say that Oettermann's dialectic understanding of the panorama as the liberalization and imprisonment of the gaze is altogether too much in the style of "Dialectic of Enlightenment"? True, the panorama is an all-encircling space of control, an apparatus designed for entertainment and alienation, conventionally binding the citizen subject. Nevertheless, simply interpreting the panorama to be but a medium of control and liberation would only lead us to the oft repeated and banal conclusion of that popular amusement encompassed the element of alienation. Is it not more important rather, for our interpretation of the panorama, to further differentiate the arrangement of the panoramic perception and moreover to understand the cracks and bends lining the surface of this perception? In order to understand the panorama from such a viewpoint, we will first redefine the concept of modernization and then annex onto this definition a discourse embodying modern perception based on such an understanding, returning once again to a discussion of the process of panoramic perception.

2. The Panorama as "Machinic Arrangement"

◇The Perception of Modernization

  The concept of modernization may also be considered from a context which does not include such teleological and economic determinist implications of progress and development as sustained by Sternberger. For example, Jonathan Crary(9), by reexamining the theories of Max Weber and G. Lukács, relieves the concept of its teleological orientation and applies the term not only to changes in the economic and political structure but uses it also to comprehend the structuralization of knowledge, language, and the subject. According to Crary, the principle of modernization in this case is a movement in which all things permanently stable are exterminated and everything is swept into a current of circulation and exchange. This movement, however, in order to preserve its own balance, must continuously keep creating new needs, production, and consumption. Conversely, such a process of self-perpetuation is constantly faced with the risk of collapse. Furthermore, such a logic of capital begins to ceaselessly undermine the stable and lasting structure of perception, reducing knowledge and perception to a state of constant transformation, or, a state of unending "crisis".

  This change in the discourse regarding knowledge and perception is, according to Crary, concretely manifested in the field of nineteenth century physiology. In this field, the physiological body, previously considered to be accidental and undependable, having only an arbitrary relation to the outside world, suddenly came to be regarded as the basis of perception. Crary's concept of "subjective vision" refers to vision which is based on this physiological structure. The problem of perception was transposed to the realm of the opaque, "density" of the invisible body. Prior to this change, the dominant model of vision had been the model of the camera obscura. Under this model, the objective truth of the outside world would be reflected, with light acting as the intermediary, within the camera obscura of the mind and it was through this mechanism that the stable relation between the subject and the outside world was maintained. Here, the incertitude and imperfections of human vision, afterimages, illusions, and all such phenomena were pushed out to the periphery as being untrue. Subjective vision, on the other hand, gives a central position to these phenomena formerly so marginalized. Truth is not transcendent but is, rather, something that is found in the physiological process of individual bodies. Figuratively speaking, the pinhole of the camera obscura is blocked and furthermore, the closed area inside is turned out to the exterior, laying bare the complex structure of the interior. In this way, the kinetic "dynamics of representation", rather than the static "optics of representation", becomes the central field of experimental research.

  According to Crary, the study of physiology is centered on the following two areas. The first is the classification of the body into various systems and functions, according to neurological distinctions, etc. However, the study of neurology has, as can be seen in the specific nerve energy theory of Johannes Müller, made it clear that the relation between stimulus and sensation is arbitrary. Müller's experiments demonstrated the fact that different stimuli can cause the same sensation and the same stimulus can cause different sensations. It follows therefore, that it is the structure and functions of the sensory organs, rather than the nature of the external stimulus, which define the perceptive experience. Thus, the main issue in the study of physiology deals with the problem of how the various senses, which are cut off from the outside world, fragmented, and mobilized, are organised. Accordingly, the basis of physiological research is found in the nonexistence of a reference, in that sensation can easily exist without any corresponding element in the outside world, and this condition in turn leads to an epistemological crisis wherein the objectivity and certainty of reality is endangered.

  The other central area of physiological research is the study of statistics in relation to these sensations. The control of the senses only became possible through the measurement and quantification of the mobilized process of sensation. As an example of such research, Crary mentions the measurement of sensation and of perception by Gustav Fechner. This also leads to the invention of operations and techniques for the control of the human body. Crary indicates that these techniques are placed on the same plane as the body, thus eliminating the difference in quality between the "machinic sphere and the biosphere" (e.g. the stereoscope and the phenakistoscope). Crary refers to this common plane as a "machinic arrangement". Here, vision as well as the body itself are considered to be constituents of this machinic arrangement.

  There is unfortunately no record that the panorama, as well as the stereoscope, was ever directly used in physiological research. However, it would not be unreasonable to consider the panorama as, in a broad sense, a technique to control the dynamics of vision, or in other words, as a phenomenal form of machinic arrangement. Let us now consider the problem of how the panorama incorporated the body of the subject into the dynamics of the mobile and disjunctive perceptual representation.

  Let us look at a few examples of some characteristic moments of the panoramic perception. The most characteristic element of the panoramic perception is its "closeness". This refers not only to the internalization of the view of a foreign landscape but also to the principle of panoramic perception itself. The panorama was often said to be an "frameless image". The panorama eliminated the frame, which had been essential to the painting, and made impossible the comparison between the tableau and the reality outside of the frame, thereby succeeding in enhancing its illusory effect. There, the attitude of setting a distance from the image, as existed in the case of the painting, became impossible. In other words, the "closeness" of the panoramic perception indicates a situation in which the observer is denied the attitude of setting a certain distance from the object and viewing it with a cool and calm gaze, and in which the distance for reflection and interpretation is lost. As a result, the observer, completely surrounded by this close-up image, is no longer able to grasp the entire image at once. This is because, in order to integrate the entire image, the subject must rotate its optical axis within a time succession. Because of this closeness, the frame- breaking pathos, which was seen in the expansion of the horizon, constantly digresses, in just the same way that the gaze slides around over the picture. That is to say, the subject, through the totality of a collection of images, is surrounded by an invisible frame and is reduced to a kind of blind spot.(10) However, this does not indicate a situation in which the viewing subject is not able to see itself, as is the case in perspective drawing. In the panorama, the viewing subject itself is also caught up in the current of the nearby images and is itself transposed onto the screen of the panorama.

  Moreover, the panoramic illusion is not based on an analogy between the image and reality, or on the relation between the original and the copy, as was the case in traditional art. In the case of the panorama, the picture itself is regarded as reality. It is not a copy of reality but an image completely equivalent to reality. In a world with such a "realistic effect", the observer becomes an existence-in-image, or an existence which is thoroughly immersed in the image. In this respect, the subject penetrating the image incarnates, in an ironical way, the anecdote of the artist who finishes his painting and then enters into it, cited by W. Benjamin in his theory of reproductive art.(11) It was this penetration into a screen equivalent to reality that was the mode of perception demanded of the subject of the panorama.

  Now let us consider what principle of composition was at work in this painting which, devoid of distance, absorbed the subject in such a fashion. Often, the surrounding screen of the panorama was said to be a collective plane on which various images were juxtaposed. As indicated earlier, the panorama, like the view from a train window, embodied the perception of the integration of various two-dimensional representations passing quickly by. At the same time, of course, the gaze looking far out over the landscape from a slightly elevated point was also characteristic of the panorama. However, even to a far-reaching gaze, the composition of a panorama painting clearly revealed a lack of depth. The panorama painting completely ignored the traditional aerial perspective and depicted all objects in an equally detailed fashion, regardless of distance. This is because the observer would often attempt, as in an actual landscape, to magnify the details of the landscape by use of a telescope. However, such a gaze would move around over the various elements juxtaposed without any adjustment of viewpoint, and would all the more undermine the principle of perspective = reproduction of reality, which assures depth. It is said that at times the reality depicted in the panorama, due to its too real appearance, made an uncomfortable impression on the observer. The more one gazes at this altogether too real reality, the more it reveals itself to be a patchwork-like collection of fragments. This presents an appearance that might be called a petrified arch-landscape in which accidental moments are accumulated.

  In addition to the above, the movement demanded of the observer by the panorama should also be mentioned. In terms of topology, the panorama is but a space consisting of a horizontally long, beltlike canvas, rolled fully once around so that the ends are joined together. Actually, it was this simple device which was the key to the success of the panorama. The person situated inside the panorama was forced to move in a circulating fashion parallel to the screen, since the only "fixed point" conceivable, the centre of the observation platform, was occupied by the entranceway. The observer was obliged to adopt a mode of reception in which he views the landscape while moving around. This point may be supported by the fact that even after the panorama saw its decline in the twentieth century, the buildings were reutilised as a dynamic space, for example, as skating rinks, driving schools, merry-go-rounds, etc. It is this volatile, moving gaze and the corresponding fragmentary stimuli and fragmentary contacts which constitute the space called the panorama. In this space, the gaze and its subjects form a relation with each other in an unprecedented way.

  A variety of adjacent and dynamic representations, a collection of perceptions which are reality itself but, because of this excess reality, reveal all the more its fragmentation -- it was such a dynamics of representation that was characteristic of nineteenth century perception. As Baudelaire pointed out by saying "Those who entered into the city looked around them, just as if they were in a panorama"(12), the city existed as a collection of signs (e.g. the faces of the crowds, products) of equal value. The problem of perception was how to control these two different aspects of collection and dispersion. This problem was brought about by the dynamic logic of capitalism and which, by the same logic, demanded a solution.

  In this way, the observer of the panorama receives with his entire body the stimuli of the various senses which surround him on all directions, pressing closer and closer. In this respect, the panorama was an apparatus designed to overcome and to acclimatize the stimuli of a new disjunctive image. However, its subject did not only discipline itself to become stronger by defending itself from the stimuli. Rather, the observer, or subject was, within the space surrounded by the closed and circular plane, caught, classified, and rearranged by the mobile dynamics of the collection of disjunctive images and then reconstructed. For example, several other writers of the period advocated the use of the panorama not only for the public amusement but also for scientifically enlightening and educational purposes.(13) This was not only because the panorama served as a substitute for experience but because they sought to find in the panorama a function for the preservation of reality, which controls the instability of perception -- that fragmentary process which is constantly in movement.

3.Discursiveness as See-sickness

  It has very often been said that the popularity of the panorama originated in the visual desire of the citizens to have general view over everything. However, after having indicated in our discussion up to this point the various indicators of the panoramic perception such as closeness, permeability, fragmentariness, presence, and movement, it should now be possible to discuss, from a slightly different viewpoint from before, the source of this desire. For example, Crary mentions the stereoscope, an optical apparatus popular in the nineteenth century, as a phenomenal form of machinic arrangement. On one hand, he illustrates the fact that, through this apparatus, the people comprehended reality to be something constructed from the disjunct images taken apart within a time sequence. On the other hand however, Crary speculates that this same apparatus brought about a fundamental oscillation in the constructed reality itself, and that this became the source of the people's intense desire. Therefore, one might say that panorama, as well as the stereoscope, constructed reality, while at the same time evoking its breakdown, and that it was this characteristic which was the main fascination of the panorama.

  The various reactions of the observers at the time of presentation of the panorama are historically recorded. Of these, the reaction called sea-sickness = see-sickness (Seekrankheit/Sehrkrankheit) is often referred to but has rarely been considered in any depth. The following is the reaction of a woman on viewing a panorama called "The Battle of Navarino".

  "The sky was blue, the deep-blue waves stretched out into the distance, and the glaring sun shone on the horizon which was covered by a bright haze…suddenly, I felt sick and dizzy.…My mind was dazed and I felt nauseated and could not think clearly…it was as if my eyes were clouded over and there was a slackness in my optical nerves. The only thing I could see was a large block of something rotating with something else."(14)

  See-sickness referred to a type of queasiness that the subject, caught up in the screen, felt while overlooking everything. Interestingly enough, according to one report, the panorama was even said to induce hysteria in people with delicate nerves.(15) What then, is the origin of this discomfort or else this attraction, which intensely affects the nerves?

  There are various theories as to the cause for this sickness. For example, art theoretician A. von Hildebrand thoroughly criticises the panorama, saying that the dizziness felt when viewing a panorama is due to the confusion of the normal accommodation of the eye.(16) Aesthetician A. J. Eberhardt makes the following observation.(17) The panorama places the observer inside its illusionary landscape but the flaw of the panorama, that is to say, its rigidity and immobility, work towards pushing the observer back into reality. The observer, however, being deprived of the means that make such an exterior comparison possible, finds himself teetering on the border between illusion and reality, and it is this condition that causes dizziness. However, the following could also just as well be considered. As mentioned before, it was not an illusion but a real perception that was constructed by the panorama. The cause of dizziness is not found in the impossibility of return from illusion to reality but, rather, in the failure to construct reality, made apparent by excess presence and fragmentariness, and deviatory movement. It is possible that these characteristics were actually points of contradiction contained within the panorama which should function to maintain reality. Here we see the dynamic process of perception in modernization, or, the process which had been said to be unstable and always facing a risk of crisis.

  Let us turn once again to the study of physiology. We have seen how the physiology in the nineteenth century aimed to overcome an epistemological crisis, that is to say, to synthesize fragments of perception, despite there being no corresponding references. However, the synthetic faculties of perception were no longer transcendent, but had to be sought in the empirical and accidental psychological faculties. The dysfunction of such psychological faculties, which occurred from time to time, and the resulting failure of synthesis of perception were linked with the collapse of perception in various aspects of psychological pathology. Furthermore, in order to prevent such a threat of collapse and breakdown, the problem of "attentiveness" became the focus of physiological research. For example, problems such as how many stimuli can one be attentive of at one time, how long can the attentiveness last, how much energy is necessary for attentiveness became the issues for research in this field. It goes without saying that attentiveness was regarded as the basis for the formation of a model in which reality was reproduced and the social subject organised. Moreover, the study of standard attentiveness was also the epistemological basis of the researching subject itself.

  However, such studies revealed a changeability in the concept of attentiveness, in other words that the line between attentiveness and non-attentiveness was actually quite ambiguous. The differentiation between standard attentiveness and excess attentiveness, that is attentiveness that diverges from the normal because of being excessive (discursiveness) had to be decided empirically case by case. Therefore, it is not the lack of attentiveness that constitutes discursiveness, as is normally believed; rather, attentiveness and discursiveness are both to be found within the same spectrum. This is a dynamic process characterized by increase and decrease, rise and fall, ebb and flow and excess attentiveness borders on intense discursiveness. On this qualitative border was found the breakdown of perception (aphasia) in various phenomena of psychological dysfunction, for example, hysteria, loss of will, psychasthenia, and weak nerves. Nevertheless, these diseases, rather than directly contradict the standard of attentiveness, represent an instability of the structure of perception itself which is revealed as a result of thoroughly investigating the true standards. Further still, one might say that the collapse of perception was to the formation of reality what aphasia was to the field of linguistics. If the study of aphasia was related to the new modern arrangement of language, aphasia is deeply rooted in the new modern rearrangement of human perception.

  The panorama is based on a "discursive" perception -- but not in the usual sense. Indeed, the intense discursiveness of see-sickness, often likened to sea-sickness, could be interpreted as a reaction to the cleft which had occurred in the process of the rearrangement of perception. For example, could we not say that this interpretation can also be found in W. Benjamin's views regarding the intermittent openings and deviations among the various images, mentioned in reference to the Kaiser Panorama?(18)
 

Conclusion

Many problems concerning the panorama have not been touched upon in this paper. We have not given a positivist survey of the history of the panorama nor have we discussed the relation between the panorama and the Romantic paintings of the same period which is so often an issue, nor have we but barely mentioned the problem of the panorama and imperialist or expansionistic desires. My attempt was solely to educe, as theoretically as possible, the arrangement of perception presupposed by the panorama and by doing so, to find a key to the approach of the panorama which was different from that of the all-seeing gaze conventionally regarded as characteristic of the panorama. Of course, there may be elements in this approach too, that need to be reconsidered. In fact, the panorama is often explained, from the viewpoint of the all-seeing gaze, as a perspective model. However, this model attempts to treat the various optical apparatuses and methods from different time periods, such as the Renaissance perspective, the camera obscura, the photograph, and the film, in a uniform fashion. Such an interpretation, whether affirming this tradition of vision as a new approach towards the faithful representation of nature, or denying it as being an ideological apparatus for the continuation of authority, is altogether too rigidly applied the perspective model. This method eliminates the problem of the historically deviatory formation. The view of the punctiform subject ruling the world, has not yet been changed.

  It is essential to interpret a certain optical apparatus not through an unquestioned model or as a simple physical substance but, rather, as in reference to the historical function of construction that it produces. This is because the optical apparatus functions on a plane which various historical discourses and practices intermingle. By joining the panorama with the physiological discourses, it becomes apparent that the panorama presupposed a different gaze and relation with its object than is seen in the perspective model. Furthermore, the panorama might be considered to be a dynamic and psychoanalytical space penetrated by desire.(19) These are the reasons why I emphasized the complex structure of panoramic perception, which belongs to popular culture and kitsch, as having a more complex structure than is normally conceived. If we think of the uneven distribution of the panorama, this dynamics of perception pierced through to the unconscious base the perception model of the nineteenth century observer --including aestheticians and pioneer art historians. Moreover, one might say that the observers' thoughts on cognizance and sensation were based on this unconscious base.

(1) The following references have been consulted in reference to the panorama:
Dolf Sternberger, Panorama oder Ansichten vom 19. Jahrhundert, Frankfurt a. M., 1981 [Hamburg, 1938].
Stephen Oetterman, Das Panorama. Die Geschichte eines Massenmediums, Frankfurt a. M., 1980.
Heinz Buddemeyer, Panorama, Diorama, Photographie. Entstehung und Wirkung neuer Medien im 19.Jahrhundert, München, 1970.
Wolfgang Kemp, “Die Revolutionierung der Medien im 19.Jahrhundert. Das Beispiel Panorama,” in Moderne Kunst, Monika Wagner (ed.), Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1991.
Sehnsucht. Das Panorama als Massenunterhaltung des 19.Jahrhunderts, Stroemfeld/Roter Stern, 1993.
Marie-Louise von Plessen, “Der gebannte Augenblick. Die Abbildung von Realität im Panorama des 19.Jahrhunderts”, in Sehnsucht.
Scott Wilcox, “Erfindung und Entwicklung des Panoramas in Großbritannien”, in Sehnsucht.
Ulrich Giersch, “Im fensterlosen Raum-das Medium als Weltbildapparat”, in Sehnsucht.
Bernard Comment, Panorama no Seiki [Le XXIe siècle des panoramas], Japanese translation by M.Nomura; Chikuma Shobo, 1996 [Société Nouvelle Adam Biro, 1993].
(2) Oetterman, op.cit., p.7.
(3) Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Italia Kikou [Italienische Reise], Japanese translation by M.Sagara, Iwanami Shoten, 1942, Vol.2 pp.66-72.
(4) Oetterman, op.cit., p.9f.
(5) Ibid., p.9.
(6) Ibid., p.34ff.
(7) Sternberger, op.cit., p.53.
(8) Wolfgang Schivelbusch, Geschichte der Eisenbahnreise ‐Zur Industrialsierung vom Raum und Zeit im 19.Jh.-, Hanser Verlag, 1977
(9) For Crary’s argument, refer to the following:
Jonathan Crary, Techniques of the Observer, MIT Press, 1990, “Unbinding Vision”, Ocotber 68 (1994) pp.21-44, “Modernizing Vision”, in Vision and Visuality. Hal Forster (ed.), Bay Press, 1988, pp.28-44.
(10) Norbert Bolz, Am Ende der Gutenberg-Galaxis, München, 1993, p.103.
(11) Walter Benjamin, “Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technishen Reproduzierbarkeit”, Gesammenlte Schriften I-2, p.504.
(12) Ibid., p.537.
(13) Bolz, op.cit., p.104.
(14) Comment, op. cit., pp.220-222.
(15) Comment, op. cit., p.123.
(16) Adolf von Hildebrand, Das Problem der Form in der bildenden Kunst, Strassburg, 1905.
(17) Buddemeyer, op.cit., p.21f.
(18) Bolz, op.cit., p.109f.
(19) Joan Copjec, Read my Desire; Lacan against historicist, MIT Press, 1994.Refer especially to Chapter 2.