Details

Series

Performance Design Archive Online

Summary note

Incandescent light was the tool which enabled the field of stage lighting design to emerge as an independent art, and the late nineteenth century theatres provided an arena for creative artists to explore the power of this new art form. Performer-managers like Henry Irving, Steele MacKaye, and Loie Fuller, and powerful directors like David Belasco, saw in stage lighting an important new collaborative medium that, by heightening spectacle, improving visibility and focus, and creating a more powerful range of natural and dramatic images, would stimulate better commercial and critical response to their work. Artist-theorists like Edward Gordon Craig, Hubert von Herkomer, Mariano Fortuny, and Adolphe Appia found in stage lighting a means to realize their new visions of expressive composition, while calling into question many of the traditions of scenic art.The twenty-five year period following the introduction of practical incandescence in 1879 was dominated by many important theoretical issues including an escalating debate on the value of footlighting, an exploration of the sculpting power of light by an emerging school of three-dimensional scenographers, and an examination of the expressive power of light which many felt was "like music" in its ability to integrate time and space. In addition, the era's extensive experimentation with lighting equipment resulted in an increased utilization of the spotlight, a more elaborate integration of projection, an expansion of the colour palette leading designers to examine methods of "painting with light," and an emergence of the cyclorama as a neutral horizon bathed in light.This study will focus on the contribution of British and North American lighting pioneers whose theories, facilities, inventions, and actual designs characterized the rapid advances of the early incandescent period (1879-1904). It will examine the diverse goals of the new lighting design practitioners: the evolution of the creative principles behind their work, their realized designs, their importance to the theatrical community of their time, and their continuing influence and significance.

Notes

Title from resource description page (viewed October 11, 2017).

Language note

• In English.
• Original language in English.

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