Phantasmagoria

In the late 18th and 19th centuries, there was a great fascination with horror shows and the supernatural. The magic lantern and the technique of Pepper’s Ghost were used to create eerie effects to thrill the audience.

Interpretation of Robertson’s Phantasmagoria, from F. Marion L’Optique, 1867

In 1792 in Paris, Paul Philidor (Q30597) presented his show, Phantasmagorie, during which a small audience witnessed, in a darkened room lit only by the embers of the fire, mysterious ghosts and apparitions. This was not the first such showing of Philidor’s, but it was probably the first under the title of Phantasmagorie – from the Greek for ‘ghost’ and ‘gathering’. Previously, Philidor had raised his ghosts in Berlin, but he was accused of being a fraud and was expelled from Prussia. He spent the rest of his life travelling around Europe startling and delighting audiences with his showings, which expanded to include a variety of ‘mechanical and optical arts’, such as a peacock automaton, which ate and drank as if it were real. In October 1801 a phantasmagoria production by Paul de Philipsthal – most likely the same person as Philidor – opened in London’s Lyceum Theatre, where it was hugely successful. The show subsequently went on tour around Britain, and its success inspired other showmen to create similar, and more elaborate spectacles.

Philidor’s Phantasmagorie was created using a Laterna Magica (magic lantern) – a simple slide projector that displayed an image made with translucent paint on glass (Q306). The principle of the projector had been known for many years – a 1420 illustration by Giovanni da Fontana shows a lantern projecting the image of a winged devil. The oldest known magic lantern was made in about 1720 by the Dutch instrument maker Jan van Musschenbroek. It used an oil lamp as a light source, greatly limiting the brightness of the image. It is likely that Philidor used the recently invented Argand lamp (Q588) for his projections, but even so it would have been necessary for the room to be in almost total darkness.

The Belgian inventor Étienne-Gaspard ‘Robertson’ Robert (Q30598) developed Philidor’s Phantasmagoria further, adding new elements to the show. By moving the magic lantern near and further from the surface it was projecting onto, he could make the ghostly figure grow and shrink in size. He ensured the auditorium was in complete darkness, to allow the audience’s eyes to adapt to low light levels, locking the doors of the theatre so there could be no disruptions once the performance started. He also made use of sound effects to add to the frightening atmosphere, such as bells, thunder, and ghostly calls. By moving the slides through the projector, he created movement, and smoke blurred the image, heightening the mysterious and enigmatic effect, while multiple projectors were used to make a complete scenography of ghostly images.

Pepper’s Ghost stage set up, Le Monde Illustré, 1862

The magic lantern as Philidor and Robert used it was too dim to use on stage unless in a complete blackout, however. Brighter projectors using limelight (Q176) as a source appeared, but it was not until projectors using carbon arc lamps (Q232) became readily available that projected images could become a regular part of the scenography of theatre shows. Nevertheless, in 1862 the English scientist John Henry Pepper demonstrated a new way to bring a supernatural apparition onto the stage, with the effect named after him: Pepper’s Ghost (Q305). The effect is created by a large sheet of glass placed at an angle on the stage. Out of direct view of the audience in a pit at the front of the stage, a brightly lit actor plays the ghost. The audience sees the ghost’s reflection in the glass, but of course can also see the other actors and stage set – the image of the ghost and the view of the stage are overlayed. By carefully arranging the position of the performers on stage and the lighting, the glass and the ghost-actor, the ghost can seem to walk, hover, and pass through solid objects and people.

Like the phantasmagoria shows, the Pepper’s Ghost effect fulfilled the 19th century public’s appetite for the supernatural, as did other stage effects such as the vampire trap (Q30596) and the Corsican trap (Q30026). Today, equivalents to Pepper’s Ghost still exist: the effect now is generally done with video projection onto a special, semi-transparent screen. Hologauze is a fine-weave gauze or scrim, that has a silvered finish to maximise light reflection, while still being fine enough to see through when it is not lit (Q30547). Musion offer a tough but thin transparent plastic ‘foil’. Both can be stretched across the stage, serving the same function as the sheet of glass in the 19th century version; the technology is different, but the ability to place a semi-transparent image into the performance space is the same. Just as they did over 150 years ago, audiences today still thrill at the sight of a mysterious image, floating ghostlike in the ‘magic box’ of the stage.