Panoptic refers to ‘showing or seeing the whole at one view’. Panoptic narrative art is often a bird’s eye view. The ‘camera’ is above. This is the art world’s equivalent of an all-seeing (omniscient) narrator.
The first to do is bring the ‘camera’ right up into the sky. The viewer now has a bird’s eye view of the setting.
But there’s more to it than that. It is an advanced compositional skill to incorporate mountains, deserts, forests and cities into a single scene.
Below is a collection of examples, with various ideas for composition.
By Peter Kľúčik for unpublished edition of The HobbitHarry Clarke Cinderella illustration for The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault, first published in this format in 1922 By Peter Kľúčik for unpublished edition of The HobbitBuzzati, Dino, The Bears’ famous Invasion of Sicily, 1947Jaro Hess Poster of The Land of Make Believe 1933Daily life in Egyptian communities by Mahrous AbdouWheat harvesting, 1984- by Ashour MeselhiTrouble for Trumpets by Peter Cross1940s illustrations by Helen Sewell for Books of Knowledge Thanksgiving Day‘Steinberg’s Panoramas’ 2.11.1938Gustaf Tenggren (1896 – 1970) Snow White and the Seven Dwarves poster 1937Things of Summer, Kathryn Jackson; illustration by Richard Scarry from The New Golden Almanac, 1952Ilonka Karasz (Hungarian-American, 1896-1981) New Yorker 1953F. Hugo D’Alesi, French (1849-1906), Zermatt railway opened in 1890. This is one of the first poster representations of the MatterhornMike Lemanski Illustration for Fortune MagazineRonald Lampitt (1906-1988) Village in Spring (1949)
Header illustration: Luis Helguera, Routes of the Flying Clipper Ships Pan Am, 1941
CONTEMPORARY FICTION SET IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND (2023)
On paper, things look fine. Sam Dennon recently inherited significant wealth from his uncle. As a respected architect, Sam spends his days thinking about the family needs and rich lives of his clients. But privately? Even his enduring love of amateur astronomy is on the wane. Sam has built a sustainable-architecture display home for himself but hasn’t yet moved into it, preferring to sleep in his cocoon of a campervan. Although they never announced it publicly, Sam’s wife and business partner ended their marriage years ago due to lack of intimacy, leaving Sam with the sense he is irreparably broken.
Now his beloved uncle has died. An intensifying fear manifests as health anxiety, with night terrors from a half-remembered early childhood event. To assuage the loneliness, Sam embarks on a Personal Happiness Project: