Introduction to the Scenic Collections

The scenery collection in the University of Minnesota's Performing Arts Archives is composed of three parts: the Twin City Scenic Company collection (PA43), the Great Western Stage Equipment Company Collection(PA44), and the Holak collection(PA49). The overall collection is the only one of its scope in the United States, and uniquely documents the technical environment of the popular stage during the late-nineteenth through early-twentieth century. Renderings and materials related to Freemason ceremonial performances are heavily represented in the Holak and Great Western collections.

Where the Physical Collections are Contained: The University of Minnesota Libraries - Manuscripts Division, includes the Performing Arts Archives. They are located on the second floor of Elmer L. Anderson Library, 222 - 21^st Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55455

How to access this imagery: To access digitized pieces, utilize the DATABASE SEARCH portion of this site. To access physical pieces, contact a Manuscripts division archivist for an appointment to view an item. Email mssref@tc.umn.edu or telephone 612-625-3550. A Performing Arts Archives representative will arrange for you to view requested items during your visit.

Significance of the imagery

The emergence of popular entertainment

This collection illustrates in many way the changing culture of the United States during the end of the nineteenth century throughout the mid-twentieth century. Varying historical and technological conditions impacted the emergence and advancement of the scenic studio system. On significant factor in the spread of popular entertainment in the latter half of the nineteenth century was the railroad. As the country expanded west, new railroads connected remote towns and cities into an elaborate network that made variety entertainment available. This movement instigated a clearer division between work and leisure, promoting not only agriculture and commerce, but also entertainment.

One of the first permanent structures in each new town was an opera house, usually built close to the railroad tracks, which provided a stage for local and touring theatre companies and a central civic and social meeting place for the community. Improved transportation and the growing railroad network joined rural communities with urban life. While rural locations had limited forms of entertainment, the cities had a full range of popular amusements that gave scenic artists and stage mechanics an opportunity to create spectacular, crowd-pleasing visual effects.

By the 1880's, variety shows were the major form of popular entertainment in America. Saloon variety show' titillating, amusing acts tended toward bawdy humor and mainly attracted working class men. Tony Pastor, famous New York Producer, is usually credited with moving variety shows into legitimate theatres and cleaning them up so they were appropriate for family viewing. "Clean" variety shows quickly evolved into Vaudeville, and its phenomenal growth was facilitated by the railroad circuits and booking agencies that linked all areas of the country into a giant entertainment network.

Besides headliners like Marx Brothers, Lillian Russell, Al Jolson, and Harry Houdini, vaudeville shows presented unusual, exotic acts like famous singer midgets or Loenida's Cats and Dogs (which featured a cat that climbed to the dome of the theatre and parachuted to the stage). All the acts were supported by elaborate scenery that captured the whimsical fantastic nature of this entertainment form.

The replacement of the scenic artist with the studio system

Increased urbanization and consumerism gradually replaced the itinerate scenic artist with a centralized scenic studio system based in railroad centers. The mass production of scenery and utilization of an emerging railroad ended most local control by scenic artists, altering many of their commercial practices. Prior to the studio system, scenery was built and painted in the local theatre, necessitating only a few individuals to travel across the country.

Eventually, theatre studios emerged within larger theatres and opera houses across the country. These buildings installed a paint bridge and frames within the fly loft for scenic painting. The majority of the scenery was then produced there and shipped to nearby locations. As business opportunities increased, theatre studios moved to increasingly larger spaces. In these commercial buildings multiple paint frames could be utilized simultaneously to produce stock scenery. A "professional" scenic studio system then emerged and was run independently, employing numerous artists who specialized in a variety of subject matter. As consumerism rose, theatrical performances became "commodities" and were sold to the public for a specific price. Many popular stage productions were then mounted mainly for profit. Production and stock companies diverted interest from a familiar story or plot to the visual spectacle created by scenic artists and new technology. As the audience was lured by the promises of great spectacle, painted illusion upon the stage increased.

The stylistic tendencies of late-nineteenth century scenic art

The nineteenth century witnessed a union of romanticism and realism in the arts of dramatic staging. Scenic exhibitions, as a chief attraction in American theatre, allowed a painting style to emerge that catered to this illusionist desire. The goal of the scenic artist was to enlarge and depict this elaborate pictorial realism for the stage, rendering believable increasingly glamorous and spectacular visions of melodrama. Although the desire for increased realism permeated the stage, many of the romanticized and idealized landscapes persisted within the background.

The influence of this pictorial romanticism began at the beginning of the century within an easel artist's frame and slowly migrated into scenic staging throughout the century as an extension of fine art both in subject and training. A variety of historical conditions impacted the perception of scenic art upon the American stage. The scenic artist's subject matter not only included numerous imitations of English and Continental romantic imagery, but also the picturesque themes of American landscapes and nationalism. The stage artist emulated the romantic representations of theme, color palette and rendering techniques of these artists. The aesthetic found within artistic portrayals of the Hudson River School, the Rocky Mountain School, and other wild American terrain was easily transferred to a stage setting. They had a propensity to emphasize the mystique of nature in the grandeur of its scale, beauty, and nobility, in remote untouched areas.

Visual styles in scenery: vaudeville and the move toward modernism

Vaudeville audiences were demanding and fickle, and scenic studio had to follow the change in style and audiences taste to remain profitable. After 1900, romantic settings were no longer in vogue. Scenery began to reflect the style found in fine art and popular magazine illustrations. Popular illustrations such as J. C.Leyendecker and N. C. Wyeth were favorite sources for studio artists. One of the most recognizable of these illustrators was Maxfield Parish, whose use of deep colors and balanced compositions made his visual style easily adapted to the stage.

The studios continued to produce the same scenery for vaudeville as they had for earlier types of theatre; they still made the stock garden, palace and forest backdrops. But instead of painting romantic, pastel scenes, the artists began to use flat areas of intense color to create a sculptural effect. From the Impressionists' movement in fine art came the use of texture and color theories that allowed special effects to be created by using the then new electric lights. And a society wide fascination with exotic lands, including Egypt, Turkey, and ancient Greece and Rome, led to a startling look of classicism on the stage and in the decorative styles of Art Deco and Art Moderne.

The Depression ended the relatively expensive vaudeville, allowing cheaper-to-produce movies to take center stage in the entertainment field; so the need for scenery drastically diminished. Theatres still used painted drops and wings, but now limited that use to musicals and operas.

Motion pictures and their effect on popular entertainment

Thomas Edison's vitascope and all of the other forerunners on motion pictures first appeared as novelties between acts in live variety shows and plays. In the late 1890's, the faint flickers projected on a backdrop called a picture sheet did not show much promise; early films were harshly lit, had high, grainy contrast, and subordinated plot to the sensation of the new medium.

The early films required painted scenery almost as much as live theatre did. Filmmakers used a blend of outdoor locations and theatre-style stock sets that were also set up outdoors, because filming then required intense natural light. Theatre innovators like David Belasco and Steele Mackaye were aware of the limitations of early film technology, but recognized the growing appeal of movies' realism and novelty. They tried to hold onto their audiences for live theatre by producing realistic dramas that incorporated spectacular lighting and other stage effects.

But with the development of electric lighting and better technology, which allowed filming indoors, motion pictures began to make inroads into live theatre's popularity. Audiences sated with nineteenth-century romanticized spectacle increasingly craved the accuracy and realism of the movies. At the same time the greedy vaudeville stars, like today's media sensations, demanded bigger salaries, forcing higher theatre process; so movies were cheaper to make and see.

Theatres built during the transitional period of the teens and twenties were often combination houses equipped for both vaudeville and movies. But that transitional period did not last long; the introduction of the "talkies" in 1927 delivered the final blow top live variety theatre's popularity.

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URL: http://digital.lib.umn.edu/scenery/intro.html
Last Revised: May 15, 2001