De Loutherbourg Research Articles

Limelight: Control and the Independent Lighting Designer

No special skill is required to light a stage; we need only switch on the fluorescents, or perform in daylight like the Greeks and Elizabethans. Our troubles began when we decided that we wanted to control light. The sun remains as intractable as Phaeton found it, so we excluded it by enclosing our theatres. Even then, the battle with artificial light was long and hard, Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg's Eidophusikon established the goal: a measure of control that could duplicate on stage and in motion the painterly variation of color and chiaroscuro that had been mastered on canvas in the High Renaissance and Baroque.

Mount St. Helens: An Artistic Aftermath

When eighteenth- and nineteenth-century tourists in search of the sublime and the beautiful visited Italy's Mount Vesuvius, they turned to artists for documentation of the experience. Philippe de Loutherbourg, Angelica Kauffman, J.M.W. Turner, Ingres, Corot, Bierstadt, and Degas are among those who painted “the fatal mountain.” In addition, many less well-known artists produced paintings, drawings, and engravings of the erupting volcano as souvenirs for the wealthy traveler or as illustrations for travel books and scientific treatises.

PHILIP JACQUES DE LOUTHER BOURG (1740–1812)

Journal Article PHILIP JACQUES DE LOUTHER BOURG (1740–1812) Get access RÜDIGER JOPPIEN RÜDIGER JOPPIEN Plthnerstrass 55, 3 Hannover, Germany Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Notes and Queries, Volume 17, Issue 9, September 1970, Pages 353-c–353, https://doi.org/10.1093/nq/17-9-353c Published: 01 September 1970

Loutherbourg's lighting innovations for eighteenth century spectaculars

Spectaculars were able to claim the stage during the closing years of the eighteenth century because of the increase in illumination, development of colored lights for special effects, and a movement in the direction of the real picture stage. These innovations were brought about by the scene designer at the Drury Lane Theatre, Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg.

“The Wonders of Derbyshire: A Spectacular Eighteenth-Century Travelogue”

The career of Philip James de Loutherbourg, the Alsatian scene designer, assumes considerable importance in a history of the English theatre. More than anyone else, De Loutherbourg was responsible for freeing stage spectacle from the rigidities of the conventional wing and border system, thus preparing the way for Capon, Planché, Stanfield and the other great romantic designers of the nineteenth century.

Philip James de Loutherbourg, R. A.

Philip James de Loutherbourg, R. A. Get access J. Penderel Brodhurst J. Penderel Brodhurst 1Bedford Park, Chiswick, W. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Notes and Queries, Volume s7-IX, Issue 231, 31 May 1890, Page 433, https://doi.org/10.1093/nq/s7-IX.231.433b Published: 31 May 1890