Poster

Author	Émile Reynaud. Théâtre Optique
Title	Pantomimes Lumineuses
Place	Pars (France)
Date	after 1892
Register	3249

Advertising poster for the optical theatre show, a mechanism for projecting cartoons on a large screen, which Émile Reynaud patented in 1888 and which began public screenings from 1892 at the Musée Grevin in Paris. It derived from his research with the praxinoscope and into how to overcome the limitation of the cyclical movement of this toy, in order to project animated stories between six and fifteen minutes long. He used a combination of one magic lantern, which projected the background of the scene, and another, which by means of mirrors and lenses, projected the moving characters. These images were hand-painted on hundreds of translucent gelatin slides held together by a flexible, perforated fabric strip, which was wound on two spools moved by hand by Reynaud himself. The entire mechanism was located behind the screen and projected by rear projection. Despite the initial success, the optical theatre show declined after three years due to the arrival of the cinematograph. No original example of this invention survives. Émile Reynaud is considered one of the main forerunners of animation cinema, thanks to his optical theatre, the first device for public projection of cartoons.

Vídeo Tornar