“So much of the panorama experience is visceral and powerful, being transported in front of these massive works of art,” enthused James Fishburne, co-curator of Forest Lawn’s new exhibition Grand Views: The Immersive World of Panoramas. Fishburne spoke with me about this little-known but spectacular art form, taking me behind the scenes of the exhibition he co-curated in conjunction with the Velaslavasay Panorama.
Grand Views offers audiences a rare chance to immerse themselves in the fascinating world of panoramas. The show centers around Forest Lawn’s Hall of Crucifixion-Resurrection – which has displayed two enormous panoramas for decades – and it also offers other enormous works, like the Panorama of the Valley of the Smokes, made by artist Sara Velas in 2000. In addition, the show provides a rich assortment of broadsides, rare objects and ephemera from the 19th-century world of panoramas that help audiences truly get inside the creation and exhibition of these massive pieces.
