Worlds full of Wonders

Comparing the societal functions of the 19th century panoramas and

the Efteling

Noa Appelman
12870811
Spectatorship and Audiences
Cock Dieleman
3719 words

“The sight of the Gorgon could turn people to stone; the sight of the panorama set people in
motion, motion that followed the rhythm of factory machines.”
- Stephan Oetterman, The Panorama History of a Mass Medium

"De Wereld vol Wond'ren laat jou nooit meer gaan, hier weet je zeker dat sprookjes bestaan!"

- The Efteling
Introduction

In the 19th century, panoramas were a very popular source of entertainment for people of all
different kinds social classes. To view such a panorama, visitors entered a room where a
(often very big) canvas would be hung, surrounding the spectator and thus immersing them
into the experience of the art piece. For the people in the 19th century, who were living in the
middle of the Industrial Revolution, changes to their everyday life were happening at a rapid
pace. Suddenly, by all the work that was created by the Industrial Revolution, the urge to do
something with their free time came to exist. To forget about all the uncertainty and radical
changes to their everyday life, people wanted to come and see something sensational, that
would overwhelm them and make them forget about their normal life and work.

Eventually, after the start of the 20th century, when the “dust” of the Industrial Revolution
settled, the once so popular panoramas started to fade from popularity. They were overtaken
by big improvements in photography and later; film, things that could immerse and entertain
people even more. The panorama buildings, which due to their architectural qualities were not
suitable for other purposes, were torn down and the panoramas faded into memories.

The end of an era you would think, but in this paper I will research how the societal function
that the panoramas had in the 19th century is still here today, but fulfilled by other entities. In
this paper I will compare the societal function of these panorama’s to the societal function of
theme parks in the Netherlands nowadays. I will focus on one theme park in particular: the
Efteling.

Nowadays, theme park the Efteling, located in the south of the Netherlands is renowned for
their quality storytelling and atmospheric attractions. For years, they have been the most
visited theme park of the Netherlands, with more than 5 million visitors in the last year and
they are the 3rd most popular theme park in all of Europe. The park is open 365 days a year
and has two separate vacation parks and one hotel (and another one in construction) for their
guests to stay at. What started as a simple playground for kids with some statues of fairytale
figures in the forest next to it, has developed in the last 71 years to one of the world’s largest
(20th on the ranking list) and profitable theme parks, which is planning to expand even further.

In this paper, I will answer the research question: “How does the societal function of 19th
century panoramas compare to the societal function of current commercial immersive
experiences, like the Efteling?” To do this, I will first describe what these panoramas were
and how they came to be, after which I will further elaborate on their societal function in the
19th century. I will use literary sources about panoramas and spectacle culture to support my
theories. Subsequently, I will give more information about the Efteling, it’s history, it’s
themes, it’s attractions and most importantly, it’s visitors and societal function. Lastly, I will
compare these societal functions and make some conclusions. I believe this research has
relevance because I think this connection has not been explored a lot in scholarly research yet.
We as consumers have, just in 2021 (a year in which the Efteling even had to shut down for a
while due to COVID-19) spend almost 160 million euros visiting to this park.1 Anything that
is that successful and profitable should be worth researching.

Panoramas

In the 19th century, Europe was changing rapidly. The Industrial Revolution was inevitably
changing the everyday life of people, at home as well as at work. The slow paced working
environment was replaced by a strict regime of fast paced mass production, powered by the
steam engine and countless other new inventions that were made to increase productivity. The
work in these new factories was often monotonous and mind-numbing, and the salary was not
very high.

To escape from this, the notion of work time versus free time became important. People were
looking for a way to fill in their free time, preferably something that would make them forget
about their dull work.2 They were looking for something that would stimulate their
imagination, immerse and overwhelm them. They found everything they needed in
panoramas. These panoramas were on show in big buildings, where the huge canvasses were
hung all around the room, so the people that walked in would be completely surrounded by
the images and feel as if they were transported into a different reality.

1
Looopings. “Dit was de gemiddelde opbrengst per Efteling-bezoeker in 2021.” Looopings. 2022.
https://www.looopings.nl/weblog/20305/Dit-verdiende-de-Efteling-gemiddeld-per-bezoeker-in-
2021.html#:~:text=In%202021%20noteerde%20de%20Efteling,4%20miljoen%20euro%20verlies
%20gedraaid.&text=De%20eigenaar%20van%20de%20Efteling%20is%20Stichting%20Natuurpark%20de
%20Efteling. Accessed on 2nd of January.
2
Sylvia Alting van Geusau, “Panorama’s in Amsterdam”, Masterscriptie UVA, 2012, 16.
 *Panorama Mesdag te Den Haag. The only Dutch panorama house that has been
preserved

Panoramas were a part of what people call “spectacle culture”, the umbrella term for all
different kinds of entertainment were people would come to be overwhelmed, immersed and
amazed. Other examples of spectacles were dioramas (miniature worlds/paintings with light
effects to create day and night), cosmoramas (viewing boxes with hyper realistic paintings),
pleoramas (people sailing past big panorama paintings in rocking boats) and fantasmagorias
(magic lanterns with which frightening images were made). People who visited these artforms
wanted to be taken out of the drag of their everyday life to be amazed, which is something
these spectacles offered them.

Bram van Oosterveldt and Stijn Bussels describe in their article “De Antwerpse
wereldtentoonstelling van 1894 als ambigu spektakel van de moderniteit” how the 19th
century citizen was feeling estranged from their fastly changing reality. In this article, they
write:

Modernity was by no means the unequivocal story of unbridled optimism for

unprecedented growth and expansion. It can be described as a process of continuous
and abrupt transformations that saddled the modern subject with a fundamental sense
of alienation from his/her rapidly changing environment.3
3
Stijn Bussels and Bram van Oostveldt. “De Antwerpse wereldtentoonstelling van 1894 als ambigu spektakel
van de moderniteit.’Tijdschrift voor geschiedenis. No. 1. Assen: Koninklijke Van Gorcum BV, februari 2012, 6.
To try to make sense of these rapidly changing times, panoramas were made to neutralize
these tensions, by presenting people with images that overwhelmed and immersed them, but
at the same time were graspable and understandable, as they were often images of things that
people recognized.

People in the 19 century were longing for a sense of tradition, something they knew and
understood, which is why many panoramas had a religious theme. People were feeling like
the rapidly happening changes of modernity were robbing them from their traditions and felt
estranged from reality.4 To help people cope with this, panoramas showed them things like
religious stories or nostalgic landscapes, things people recognized and could find solace in.

But why, if people wanted to be transported to a different reality, did they not go to the
theatre? Theatre and these spectacles were both about visually transferring messages to the
audience. But, as Kirsten Maar describes in her contribution to the book Spektakel als
ästhetische Kategorie. Theorien und Praktiken, in terms of the sensational event that defines
spectacle, panoramas were less about contemplative, reflective contemplation, but more
immersive overwhelmingness, which people needed to let the stress of their everyday life go.5

Thus, panoramas rapidly became incredibly popular. People from all different kinds of social
classes came to visit them, and, in turn, financed them to keep developing, to paint new
images and to construct new buildings. Stephan Oetterman writes about this in his book
Panorama: History of a mass medium as well:

For the first time art and artists found a patron in the masses. And the panorama, in
turn, was the first art form to attempt to fulfill the visual needs and desires of
anonymous city dwellers, in both the themes that it portrayed and the manner in which
it presented them.6
In other words: the panorama offered what the people wanted to see, or more importantly;
experience. Their admission fees were used to keep designing new panoramas, which explains
why there were suddenly so many panorama-houses in all of Europe.7

The dangers of this constant thirst from spectators for sensation and overwhelm, are described
by Marxist theorist Guy Debord, who stated that indulging in spectacle made people prone to

4
Sylvia Alting van Geusau, “Panorama’s in Amsterdam”, Masterscriptie UVA, 2012, 111.
5
Simon Frisch, Elisabeth Fritz, Rita Rieger, Spektakel als ästhetische Kategorie. Theorien und Praktiken.
(Paderborn, 2018) 236.
6
Stephan Oettermann, Panorama, History of a Mass Medium (New York: Zone Books 1999), 45.
7
Sylvia Alting van Geusau, “Panorama’s in Amsterdam”, Masterscriptie UVA, 2012, 37.
turn dependent, estranged and isolated.8 He feared that spectacle was an ultimate form of
consumerism, which stripped away peoples individuality.9 He found that spectacle distracted
and estranged people from reality, which to be fair: it truly did. But instead of people
becoming estranged from the real world: it gave them strength to cope with it as it shortly
gave them a taste of what they were missing. This of course, wasn’t going to work forever,
but for the 19th century, it did.

It is true that due to the high level of immersion panoramas were very powerful in steering the
gaze of the spectator. The entire architecture of the panorama directed the viewer's psyche. 10
This connected with the paradoxical status of spectacles related to freedom and captivity. On
the one hand, the spectator was confined in a closed off space and on the other hand, the
spectator was given the feeling of moving around in a free secular space.11

There also is a notion of nationalism that comes with the panoramas. Spectacle culture, and
thus panoramas, has been strongly associated with nationalism since the nineteenth century.
Denise Blake Oleksijczuk, in her book The First Panoramas: Visions of British Imperialism,
describes how panoramas were a place where national identities were formed, something
crucial to nationalism. The panorama created a wedge in both time and space between "here
and now" and "there and then."12 It was able to convey very strong ideological messages on
an intellectual and physical level. The panoramas ensured that everyone who went to look at
them saw the same scene from the same perspective, with the importance of the spectacle
becoming more and more about the nation-state.

However, it must be noted that this shared perspective does not mean that every persons
understanding of the image was the same. The tension between the sense of freedom that
people felt being so overwhelmed and closedness of being in a enclosed space within the
panorama, according to Oleksijczuk, could result in a different understanding of the same
image.13 Everyone has a shared perspective, but each interpretation, or what people value
inside this perspective, can be different.

8
Kati Röttger, “Historiografie des Spektakels”, B. Wihstutz, B. Hoenisch (Hg.), Neue Methoden der
Theaterwissenschaft (Bielefeld; transcript 2020), 133.
9
Kati Röttger, “Historiografie des Spektakels”, 133.
10
Oliver Grau, Virtual Art From illusion to Immersion, (Londen: MIT Press, 2003), 6.
11
Sylvia Alting van Geusau, “Panorama’s in Amsterdam”, Masterscriptie UVA, 2012, 28.
12
Denise Blake Oleksijczuk, The First Panoramas. Visions of British Imperialism (University of Minnesota
Press, 2011), 3.
13
Denise Blake Oleksijczuk, The First Panoramas. Visions of British Imperialism (University of Minnesota
Press, 2011), 12-13.
In the beginning of the 20th century, the popularity of the panorama vanished as quickly as it
arose. The people had seen so much panoramas that the “newness” of it faded away. As
Sylvia Alting van Geusau puts it: “Society had become accustomed to new developments at
the technological and industrial level.”14 People got, as banal as it may sound, bored, and
moved on to newer media, such as film, which was able to show more new images then the
panorama. Since people were not investing money in the panoramas anymore, painters
couldn’t keep making the huge images and upholding the panorama houses became
unsustainable. With the demolition of the panorama house at the Plantage Middenlaan in
Amsterdam in 1935, it was crystal clear that the immense popularity of the panorama in the
Netherlands (as well as in the rest of Europe) had come to an end.

The Efteling

In the year 1952, in the village of Kaatsheuvel, theme park the Efteling officially opened its
doors. Then, the park consisted of just a few playgrounds, a pond and ten fairytale figures
scattered around the woods. In the years that followed, more and more attractions gradually
opened up. Not only did twenty more fairytales find their home in the Fairytale Forest, also a
lot of rollercoasters, darkrides and eating establishments were built in the park. When visiting
the park now, there are sixty-two attractions, eight rollercoasters and more than seven park
specific shows that visitors can go and see, multiple times each day.

I believe the Efteling qualifies as a modern, commercial, immersive experience. Due to all the
attention to detail and storytelling, every effort is being made to transfer visitors into a
magical, fairytale world. The style of the Efteling is instantly recognizable and visible all
throughout the park. People delude themselves into this magical world and for a few hours
forget about their jobs, problems or the idea of how expensive their parking ticket is going to
be when they get to the parking lot.

The overall style of the Efteling was first drawn by Anton Pieck, who has designed the images
for large parts of the fairytale forest. When Pieck retired, Ton van de Ven took over and made

14
Sylvia Alting van Geusau, “Panorama’s in Amsterdam”, Masterscriptie UVA, 2012, 8.
sure to keep using this signature style. When the park kept growing, many more designers and
architects were hired to expand the park, but at the same time take care in preserving the
signature “magical” fairytale style. Below, you can see the original sketches by Anton Pieck
and how the attractions still look today.

Nowadays, the Efteling has a whole Design department that is responsible for thinking about
every detail of the park.15 There is not a single attraction, eating establishment or even toilet
that does not have the signature style and has a thought out story. Indeed, even the toilet has
its own story.16 The park is divided into different theme areas, each theme area has it’s
corresponding attractions, theme music and designing style, while still fitting into the
fairytale-like overall theme. All in all: every detail of the Efteling is thought about and
designed to completely transport it’s visitors to a fairytale world.

When asking the directors of the Efteling about what they think the secret to the success of the
park is, this transportation and attention to immersive stories is often their answer. A few
examples:

15
Isabel Baneke, “Wat is de succesformule van de Efteling?” Trouw, 2016, https://www.trouw.nl/nieuws/wat-is-
de-succesformule-van-de-efteling~b6782c9d/, Accessed 15th of January.
16
Eftepedia, De kleine boodschap, https://www.eftepedia.nl/lemma/Kleine_Boodschap, Accessed 13th of
January.
Spokeswoman Femke van Es:

"We stick to our roots: the fairytales and stories. We will never put up a new roller
coaster without a story behind it."17

Interview with director Fons Jurgens:

“Q: How do you see the Efteling ten years from now?

A: Then we will still be a place where you can marvel and forget your worries.”18

I could not have made the comparison any better than Efteling director Fons Jurgens does in
this quote. He states that the essence of the Efteling is a place where you can feel a sense of
wonder, get overwhelmed by the magic and forget about the worries of ones everyday life.
Which should sound familiar, since it is exactly the same thing that panoramas did for the
people living in the 19th century.

Comparing societal functions

Before I elaborate on the similarities in societal functions of the panorama and the Efteling, I
will first give a few physical/visual similarities between the two. Firstly, and most strikingly,
there is an attraction in the Efteling that is literally called “Diorama”, which is entails the
exact same thing as 19th century dioramas: a miniature world that changes between day and
night. To see what this looks like, you can click: Diorama.

Then, the Efteling also has some darkrides that seem to be good examples of pleoramas,
minus the water. Instead of sailing, the carts in which the spectators take a seat are
preprogrammed or on rails. To see examples of this, watch: Droomvlucht Onride or
Symbolica Onride. The spectators are taken past all sorts of different images, the only
17
NOS Nieuws, “Nederlandse attractieparken populair bij buitenlanders”, NOS Nieuws, 2017,
https://nos.nl/artikel/2188109-nederlandse-attractieparken-populair-bij-buitenlanders, accessed 19th of January.
“We houden vast aan onze roots: de sprookjes en verhalen. Wij zullen nooit een nieuwe achtbaan neerzetten
zonder een verhaal erachter.”
18
Sanne Mareting, “15 vragen aan Efteling-directeur Fons Jurgens”, Efteling.nl, 2021,
https://www.efteling.com/nl/blog/fans/20210417-15-vragen-aan-efteling-directeur-fons-jurgens, Accessed 10th
of January. Q: Hoe ziet u de efteling over tien jaar? A: Dan zijn we nog steeds een plek waar je je kunt
verwonderen en waar je je zorgen kunt vergeten.
difference being the fact that these “panoramas” are not painted, but portrayed in 3D by
puppets, sculptures and decors. Below, you can see the dock were people were supposed to
step into the boats at the pleoramas, compared to the carts people board when entering the
Droomvlucht.

Some physical similarities are thus certainly present, but what about the societal function?
Firstly, as discussed earlier, the panoramas were used be to fill up the free time that was
created by the strict work time vs free time regime that came with the Industrial Revolution.
In her PHD thesis, Moniek Hover argues that a similar thing happened from 1950-1990, the
time period in which the Efteling opened and gained a lot of popularity.

In the early 1990s - in the oversupply of leisure activities - the search began for a
"counterpoint," for escape from the daily grind and escape into an "unreality" in the
form of special, multisensory experiences.19
These developments; looking for an escape of the daily grind, multisensorial experiences, are
clearly very similar to the social conditions that allowed the panorama to flourish. Hover also
writes about the economic changes that were happening in the 1950s, people got more free
time, since the war and reconstruction ended, more money to spend on free time, and the
supply of entertainment was rapidly growing. She also notes a dual “spectacularisation” of
free time entertainment. She writes:

On the one hand, free time more got and more lavishly decorated, "with more effects"
[…], on the other hand, the importance of visual impressions and appearances
19
Moniek Hover, “De Efteling als ‘verteller’ van sprookjes”, 2013, 166.
 increased more and more. Especially in the realm of leisure, the visual culture (as well
as multisensory culture) increasingly emerged.20
A resurgence of the visual culture, exactly like we saw in the 19th century with the popularity
of the panoramas. According to Hover, free time had to get more extravagant and the visual
impressions more impressive to keep the spectators entertained and the visitors coming.

She also talks about the immersive experience of the Efteling and how the themes are
essentially inescapable. Everywhere you go there is music that is customized to the park area,
every lamppost or trashcan is thematized, this gives the Efteling a feeling of being in a whole
new world and enables visitors to forget everything that is going on in their everything lives.
Like with the panoramas, the visitor gets immersed in an enclosed space, but the visitor barely
feels that anymore, since the park is 72 hectares big and most of its attractions are located
outdoors.

Just as the panoramas, the Efteling is very skilled in steering the psyche of its visitors. It
makes sure the people look where they want people to look and hide any trace of the
mechanics or building sites. They use a specific paintcolor (“Go Away Green”) for their
construction screens so people do not look at it, they use actors and park entertainment to
make things feel more alive and are meticulous in their decorating of every single detail of the
park. As noted before: every little detail is thought of to completely immerse the visitor into
the world of the Efteling, and make sure they do not get taken out of it.

Also, a link with the statements that Oleksijczuk makes about panoramas and nationalism can
be seen in the Efteling. Of course, the Efteling is not used for the direct purpose of
nationalism, but it does play into the idea of a nation state. It’s foundation lies in the fairytales
that we, as Dutch people, all know and have grown up with. It presents images of things
which we all know and feel nostalgic for, as we were told these stories when we were kids.
The Efteling gives visitors a feeling of nostalgia and authenticity. People like the fact that
they can go into the park and recognize the stories that they grew up with and introducing
their own children to these stories as well. It connects us as a nation, and as a matter of fact
fairytales are a very powerful tool in creating a national identity.21 It is even noticed that
strength in connecting Dutch people also brings about one of the main challenges/difficulties

20
Moniek Hover, “De Efteling als ‘verteller’ van sprookjes”, 2013, 166.
21
Ana-Maria Baciu, “History, Fairytales and the Shaping of Identity” Annales Universitatis Apulensis. Series
Philologica, No 3, 2018, 17.
of the park, attracting foreigners. Leisure-trendwatcher Hans van Leeuwen describes: "That
warm blanket of the stories is hard to convey to foreigners".22

All in all, there are plenty similarities, not just in physical elements, but also in their societal
functions. The panoramas, as well as the Efteling, provide entertainment to make people
forget about the worries of ones everyday life, using powerful images and tricks to immerse
the spectator into their world completely. Society, both in the 19th century, as the 1950s, were
in need of such entertainment to cope with the rapidly changing world, which panoramas and
the Efteling provided for them.

Conclusion

In this paper, I have shown the comparisons between the societal function of the panoramas,
which were highly popular in the 19th century, and Dutch theme park the Efteling, which is
one of Europe’s most popular amusement parks. In the 19th century, panoramas were a way
for people to get immersed into a visually overwhelming artwork, to forget about their work
life for a while. In the midst of the developments of the Industrial Revolution, everyday lives
of people were changing rapidly, and panoramas showed them images that they recognized,
understood and gave them a sense of tradition.

The Efteling does something very similar. They pay meticulous attention to every detail to
make sure that the visitor gets completely immersed into their fairytale world. These fairytales
are things that people of all ages have grown up with and connects us as a nation. The Efteling
tries to give them a nostalgic feeling, which they want to share with their children as well,
thus creating the new generation of visitors. They want people that visit the park to forget all
about their worries outside of the park and marvel in their “World Full Of Wonders”, just as
the panoramas used immersion to made people forget their worries.

The similarities are very clear, and also clearly lucrative. To conclude, I come back to Debord
one final time, who feared that the constant thirst for spectacle would culminate into an
ultimate form of consumerism; he might have been right. The Efteling, who in 2021 had a
turnover of almost 160 million euros, a number that keeps growing with the years, which is

22
Isabel Baneke, “Wat is de succesformule van de Efteling?” Trouw, 2016, https://www.trouw.nl/nieuws/wat-is-
de-succesformule-van-de-efteling~b6782c9d/, Accessed 15th of January.
already 72 hectares big and is planning expand even further, might be an example of ultimate
consumerism. But, as the high number of visitors show, that has not yet been a reason for
people to stop coming to the Efteling and forget their worries for a while.

Bibliography

Alting van Geusau, Sylvia. “Panorama’s in Amsterdam”. Masterscriptie UVA. 2012.

Baciu, Ana-Maria. “History, Fairytales and the Shaping of Identity.” Annales Universitatis
Apulensis. Series Philologica. No 3, 2018. 17-26.

Baneke, Isabel. “Wat is de succesformule van de Efteling?” Trouw. 2016.

https://www.trouw.nl/nieuws/wat-is-de-succesformule-van-de-efteling~b6782c9d/. Accessed
15th of January.

Blake Oleksijczuk, Denise. The First Panoramas. Visions of British Imperialism. University
of Minnesota Press, 2011.

Eftepedia. De kleine boodschap. https://www.eftepedia.nl/lemma/Kleine_Boodschap.

Accessed 13th of January.

Frisch, Simon. Elisabeth Fritz. Rita Rieger. Spektakel als ästhetische Kategorie. Theorien und
Praktiken. Paderborn, 2018.

Grau, Oliver, and Gloria Custance. Virtual Art : from Illusion to Immersion. Cambridge, MA,
The MIT Press, 2003.

Hover, Moniek. “De Efteling als ‘verteller’ van sprookjes”, 2013.

Looopings. “Dit was de gemiddelde opbrengst per Efteling-bezoeker in 2021.” Looopings.

2022. https://www.looopings.nl/weblog/20305/Dit-verdiende-de-Efteling-gemiddeld-per-
bezoeker-in-2021.html#:~:text=In%202021%20noteerde%20de%20Efteling,4%20miljoen
%20euro%20verlies%20gedraaid.&text=De%20eigenaar%20van%20de%20Efteling%20is
%20Stichting%20Natuurpark%20de%20Efteling. Accessed on 2nd of January.
Mareting, Sanne. “15 vragen aan Efteling-directeur Fons Jurgens” Efteling.nl. 2021.
https://www.efteling.com/nl/blog/fans/20210417-15-vragen-aan-efteling-directeur-fons-
jurgens. Accessed 10th of January.

NOS Nieuws. “Nederlandse attractieparken populair bij buitenlanders”. NOS Nieuws. 2017.
https://nos.nl/artikel/2188109-nederlandse-attractieparken-populair-bij-buitenlanders.
Accessed 19th of January.

Oettermann, Stephan (1999): Panorama. History of a Mass Medium. New York: Zone Books.

Oostveldt, Bram van, and Stijn Bussels. “De Antwerpse wereldtentoonstelling van 1894 als
ambigu spektakel van de moderniteit.” Tijdschrift voor geschiedenis 125, no. 1, 2012. 4–19.

Röttger, Kati. “Historiografie des Spektakels”. B. Wihstutz, B. Hoenisch (Hg.). Neue

Methoden der Theaterwissenschaft. Bielefeld; transcript 2020.