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  • John Johnson Collection, Games Drawer 5
    Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford     Order image

  • John Johnson Collection, Games Drawer 5
    Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford     Order image

  • John Johnson Collection, Games Drawer 5
    Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford     Order image

  • John Johnson Collection, Games Drawer 5
    Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford     Order image

  • John Johnson Collection, Games Drawer 5
    Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford     Order image

  • John Johnson Collection, Games Drawer 5
    Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford     Order image

  • John Johnson Collection, Games Drawer 5
    Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford     Order image

  • John Johnson Collection, Games Drawer 5
    Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford     Order image

  • John Johnson Collection, Games Drawer 5
    Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford     Order image

Choriorama

View comments [1]

J. Burgis

c.1825

The object of the Choriorama is to instruct young people ‘in the Art of Composing & Drawing Landscape Scenery’. ‘To compose picturesque scenery, the learner must be careful in selecting dark massy subjects for the foreground, the lighter for the middle distance, and those which seem (by their diminutive size and faint colour) to retire from the eye, to form the extreme distance’.  The instruction book (a rare survival) describes how to mix the desired colours correctly.

The Choriorama also incorporates five specific views  (Byland Abbey, Hastings Castle, Southampton, Tintern Abbey, and lastly Sandford Castle and the Isle of Portland). These are broken up into four separate cards, which must be arranged in the right order.
 

Make your own scenes with our interactive Choriorama.

Comments

What makes this a treasure?

The exquisitely hand-coloured Choriorama, and Youth’s Instructor in the art of composing & drawing landscape scenery, published by J. Burgis in c. 1825, is one of my favourite items in the John Johnson Collection. Its 16 strips can be put together in 20,922,789,888,000 ways. The original box has survived and also the instruction booklet. This tells children how to mix pigments to copy the scenes and also reveals that certain of the strips can be put together to form particular landmarks, such as Tintern Abbey and Hastings Castle. We have made this interactive so that you can have fun making your own scenes.

Posted by Julie Anne Lambert, Librarian of the John Johnson Collection

On 22/09/2011

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