Optical View Of The High Street In London (# Strand England)

Optical view enhanced in watercolor colors, representing a view of the main street and St. Mary's Church in London. Optical views, also called views, perspectives or even "mondo nuovo", were very fashionable engravings between the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century. They were intended to be observed through a set of several mirrors or by means of a Zygrascope, an instrument consisting of a mirror and a lens. Optical sights can be considered as the precursors of three-dimensional images and stereoscopes which were very successful from the 19th century. Optical sights seem to appear in the 1740s and are parlor entertainments. The process was developed first in Paris, then London and finally in Germany and endeavored to represent - in an idealized way - the most famous panoramas and landscapes of the East and West.