Dioramas as art

[martinbayer]

I just discovered a few web pages related to an exhibition called "Otherworldly: Optical Delusions and Small Realities," which was shown in 2011 at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York. As always, art is in the eyes of the beholder, but even from a pure craftsmanship perspective there were apparently several truly stunning pieces on display. Some links are here:

http://collections.madmuseum.org/code/emuseum.asp?emu_action=advsearch&rawsearch=exhibitionid/%2C/is/%2C/530/%2C/true/%2C/false&profile=exhibitions

http://madmuseum.org/sites/default/files/static/ed/%3Cem%3EEdit%20Program%20Description,%20Education%3C/em%3E%20Resource%20Materials/otherworldly_TRP_final_sm_0.pdf

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/06/12/arts/design/20110612-optical-delusions.html?_r=0

http://dslr-photography.wonderhowto.com/inspiration/otherworldly-optical-delusions-and-small-realities-0128136/

http://www.designboom.com/art/otherworldly-optical-delusions-and-small-realities/

http://craftylove.blogspot.com/2011/06/otherworldly-miniature-photography-show.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW0rDzNNxog

Enjoy!

Martin

[rickshaw]

The Australian War Memorial makes extensive use of Dioramas to explain campaigns/battles.   They are always one of the big draw cards for the young in particular and use forced perspective to give greater depth than they actually have.  While the large battle ones are very impressive one of the cleverest is as series of smaller ones which tell the story of how the campaigns in Palestine and New Guinea were supplied with a small diorama explaining each stage of the process and the difficulties that had to be overcome to get supplies from ship to frontline.

http://www.awm.gov.au/visit/dioramas/

[Librarian]

I have a very powerful memory of coming to England to visit my Grandparents in about 1974, being taken to Hendon and being completely hypnotised by the dioramas and models. It triggered off my lifelong love of model making. When I took my son at around the same age (fiveish) it had exactly the same effect. There's a particularly good desert airstrip diorama somewhere near the Vulcan that still enthralls me.

[PR19_Kit]

That's very pleasing, I did a couple of those models at Hendon. 

Modelling in 1/48 was a bit out of my field but it was good working with almost infinite research resources.

[NARSES2]

Yup the Science Museum has a lot of small diorama's in various sections which haven't changed since I was a kid. The ones showing agricultural progress from year dot are very, very evocative of the 50's, an era I'm beginning to feel very nostalgic about.

The other one that still fascinates me is the Waterloo diorama in the National Army Museum

Walks away muttering "I'm getting old"

[Captain Canada]

Wow what a great set of links. Thanks !

Reading your comments about museum dioramas just makes me angry....having recently been there, other than our fantastic airshow trip with Nick, I missed out completely on anything historic !

[PR19_Kit]

The huge model diorama collection at Hendon was moved into storage many years ago when they re-vamped the side gallery, and they've never been seen since, sad to say. The last time I asked about them there the staff didn't even know they existed! 

[NARSES2]

The huge model diorama collection at Hendon was moved into storage many years ago when they re-vamped the side gallery, and they've never been seen since, sad to say. The last time I asked about them there the staff didn't even know they existed! 

Happening in lots of museums Kit. Kids of today want something interactive. I wonder where all the models of aircraft, ships and armour that used to be in the glass cases at the IWM in Lambeth went ? I find the IWM rather dull now although my Godson found it "fun" when we went last year and he was 7 at the time. Mind you he preferred Hendon

[jcf]

Dunno if it's so much the kids that require interactive exhibits as it is the management staff
who feel a need to compete for the entertainment $£€¥. They do have a point in our
digital age, however, far too often the baby goes out with the bathwater. 

The Museum of Flight in Seattle has two large collections of WWI & WWII Aircraft models
that were built by a retired dentist and I've seen kids just as fascinated by the long cases
full of models as they are by the interactive space simulator.
http://www.museumofflight.org/exhibits/holtgrewe-wwi-model-collection
http://www.museumofflight.org/holtgrewe

I think the big problem is that adults too often make assumptions as to what a child would
find interesting. 

[rickshaw]

Very true, Jon.  The Dioramas at the AWM as still very popular and everytime I go, I watch the kids looking fascinated at them.  The last one constructed was in the 1960s during the Vietnam War and shows a typical cordon and clearing operation on a Vietnamese village.  However, it also shows what went on below the surface with NLF tunnels and tunnellers and tunnel rats clearing them.  Very effective.  Everytime I see it, my memory harks back to my service days when I was taught the art of undertaking such an operation as a digger (and that was after the Vietnam War had been over officially for 5 years!).

The AWM has also succumbed to the interactive bug.  It was an early innovator in the field.  Two of the most evocative are the new Vietnam galley's Helicopter, which is a UH-1B's fuselage in the middle of the gallery with mannequins in it and every 10 minutes with the use of lights and sound they give you some idea of what it was like to be in the middle of a DZ as the choppers landed with radio and the "whup! Whup! Whup!" of the rotor blades.  The Korean gallery has a new one as well, with a typical dugout during the latter static phase of the war, where you look through slits out to a dark no-man's land (actually looking into a computer LCD screen).  Again, ever 10 minutes, a sound track starts with some actors playing the roles of some diggers on guard, watching events as they unfold on the screen and you see what happens when a night patrol "trips" a response from the ChiComs.  Tracers go across the screen, artillery is called in, with the whispered narrative from the invisible diggers in your ears.  Very effective. 

[NARSES2]

I think the big problem is that adults too often make assumptions as to what a child would
find interesting. 

You may well be right there Jon

[darthspud]

i was in RAF Hendon a few months back and asked the only staff member I could find where all the diorama's were.

She scuttled off to get a supervisor, question above her knowledge/pay grade.
The supervisor must have been all of 18 years of age and had no idea what I was asking about.

A real shame, as there were some superb scaled diorama's both straight on and some forced perspective ones.

Shame, I was going to spend serious time taking notes, photo's etc to build something similar for my old RAF Training school.

[lancer]

The air museum at Tangmere, or whats left of Tangmere, has got a very good collection of models on display. Whenever I've visited there there have been kids that were really interested in them, especially the dioramas. Last time I was there, I ended up explaining a dio to about 6 or 8 kids who heard ne telling my 2 nephews what were going on....I think  it's important for museums to keep thier model displays, especially the dio's so that people can get an idea of additional aspects of the message the museum is conveying.

[scooter]

The Fort Lee Historic Park, run by the Palisades Interstate Park Commission, used had some really interesting dios about the British assault on the Fort during the American Revolution, and the Battle of New York.  And, IIRC, the West Point Museum had quite a few as well.  Sadly, as its been years since I've visited them, I've no idea whether or not they've succumbed to the "Interactive" bug yet

[PR19_Kit]

Cosford has some superb models in their collections. They're in varying scales though, which rather defeats the object to my mind, although they've probably been donated by their builders who build in  their fave scale of course.