Are We There Yet?: Virtual Travel and Victorian Realism

3. Wish You Were Here: Marketing the Experience

Going Nowhere: Panoramic Travel 47 dependent on the quality of the illusion, the degree to which the panorama could substitute for the place itself. 3. Wish You Were Here: Marketing the Experience Most panorama exhibitors included in their advertisements lengthy testimonials from appropriate individuals: mariners, well-­ known travellers, eminent figures such as Dickens, people associated with the depicted scene who could vouch for its faithfulness to the“original.” The souvenir pamphlet that Banvard produced to accompany his panorama concludes with laudatory letters from engineers and steamboat captains (as well as the text of a resolution by the Massachusetts Senate and House of Representatives, praising the painting). In this way, spectators were invited to become part of an experiential loop in which the experience of others validated the simulacrum that would in turn substitute for their own experience. This validation was often reinforced through emphasis on the difficulties involved in obtaining the on-­ site sketches needed to produce the panorama. A description of a hundred-­ foot painting of Jerusalem, for example, notes“the perilous circumstances under which the drawings for this view were executed,” suggesting that “those who have travelled in the Holy Land are well aware that the Turks, its fanatic masters, esteem the city sacred; and, that any attempt of this kind, if unhappily detected, would have been punished according to their laws with a cruel and ignominious death” (JJ Coll, Dioramas 1). An experience so fraught with difficulty and danger embodies enough reality, it seems, to spare some to its secondhand incarnation. The viewer could scarcely be blamed for preferring the method of travel described in a competing advertisement :“Many have long desired to visit the Holy Land, but now, through Mr. NEIL’s magnificent display, Palestine has come to them for some 5s” (JJ Coll, Dioramas 1). Because the realism of the scene depicted depended in part on the recognition that someone had actually seen and experienced it, the presence of a lecturer as a kind of“tour guide”was an indispensable component of the most successful panoramas. The authenticity of the representation seemed to be validated by the presence of an eyewitness who could bear testimony to its accuracy. Banvard ’s panorama of the Mississippi was able to capitalize on this sense of authenticity because it was presented by the painter, Banvard himself. Dickens 48 Are We There Yet? said of this panorama, “These three miles of canvas have been painted by one man, and there he is, present, pointing out what he deems most worthy of notice . This is his history” (Slater, 135–­ 36). As a writer who was always anxious to, in Jay Clayton’s words, expand the “cultural bandwidth” (200) of his work, Dickens created a valuable authorial persona through public readings, and he understood the way in which physical presentation of a work can reinforce its sense of authenticity. Panorama lecturers came to be called“cicerones,” in imitation of real tour guides (Hyde, 133).10 The claim that panoramas could be regarded as a substitute for real travel experience was a strategic element of the publicity created by panorama exhibitors .A scenic view of a Swiss waterfall incorporating“the various changes of the day” is said, in an 1831 advertising handbill, to produce so“enchanting” an effect that spectators“cannot help fancying themselves imperceptibly transported into the very interior of the province of Switzerland; and that they are viewing in reality , the very identical spot, on which their admiration is so intensely fixed” (JJ Coll, Dioramas 3). An advertisement for a panorama of Niagara Falls pretends that there is no distinction between the image and the reality:“Have You Seen Niagara Falls? If not, go now to Niagara Hall” (JJ Coll, Dioramas 2) (fig. 3). The famous Panorama of London by Night, exhibited in the Colosseum after interest in the Grand Panorama of London had waned, is given this testimonial in a souvenir guide to the reopened Colosseum:“We confidently state, that it is next to impossible, that any person can lean over the balustrade for five or six minutes, and mark the fleecy clouds sailing steadily along, lighted as they come within the influence of the halo-­ encircled moon . . . [and] recall themselves immediately to the conviction that the scene before them is nothing but an illusion ” (“Description of the Colosseum,” 22). Promotional materials for these exhibits insist so forcefully on the analogy between panorama viewing and real travel that they quickly become self-­ consciously facetious. An advertisement for “Mr. Washington Friend...