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James Gilray: A Phantasmagoria: Scene Conjuring up an Armed Skeleton 1803.
The popular satirical cartoonist lampoons the popularity of the Phantasmagoria while at the same
time hinting at the overtones of fear, ’magic’ and ‘sorcery’ that underpin its attraction.
“In Paris, soon after the Revolution, the showman and inventor Etienne-Gaspard Robertson staged a son-et-lumiere Gothic moving picture show, under the name of ‘Fantasmagorie’; coined from Greek, phantasmagoria means an ‘assembly of phantoms’. Robertson used a projector, the Fantascope, dispensed with the conventional theatres raised stage, the puppet show box and the proscenium arch, and concentrated his lighting sources and effects in the projector itself by placing it behind a large flat screen like a theatrical scrim. He also mounted his newfangled magic lantern on rollers, so that when, concealed behind the screen, he pulled back from the audience, the image swelled and appeared to lunge forward into their ranks. With a true impresario’s flair for catching the mood of the public, Robertson deliberately excited screams and squeals. He - and his contemporary rivals and imitators - set the scene for the coming of the horror video, its ghouls, ghosts and vampire-infested suburbs. The recent Terror furnished him with the inspiration for some deadly special effects: the severed head of Danton, adapted from his death mask, was projected onto smoke, and then gradually faded away, changing into a skull as it did so. The show was even closed down by the police for a spell because the fear spread that Robertson could bring Louis XVI back to life.”
Marina Warner: Darkness Visible: The Phantasmagoria in Warner: Phantasmagoria 2006.