The Philosophical Toy

A thousand of avid eyes’ peering ‘into the holes of the

stereoscope, which were like skylights into infinity’

Charles Baudelaire

At first glance, the two photographs juxtaposed on a card mount appear identical. Each one depicts Mont Orgueil Castle atop a hill. Around the base of the structure, there is a cluster of closely grouped buildings. Below, to one side, a dock wall can be seen; to the other, numerous masts in the Gorey harbour. Beyond their historical value, there is nothing particularly remarkable about the photographs. However, when explored through a stereoscopic viewer, something happens: the images merge, and the scene suddenly transforms into a delicately crafted diorama. The silhouette of each bollard and mast seems to leap from the albumen paper, making the photograph resemble the scenography of a theatrical play in a nautical ambiance. Yet, there are no actors in this play, nor any movement, only the mesmerising echo of the past in three rudimentary dimensions.

The effect of depth is produced by two slightly different photographs taken from viewpoints separated by 10 to 20 centimetres, which our brain instinctively merges. The scientific principles behind this technology were studied by the Victorian polymath Sir Charles Wheatstone, who dedicated himself to understanding how living beings with binocular vision perceive a three-dimensional world from two distinct images. Wheatstone was already aware of the 17th-century theories put forth by Johannes Kepler and René Descartes, which suggested that the muscular sensations experienced during the convergence of the eyes in binocular vision could be instrumental in gauging the distance of objects and thus providing a sense of depth. In 1832, Wheatstone designed a device, known as the first stereoscope, to demonstrate the physiology of vision. The device used two mirrors, angled at 45 degrees towards the viewer’s eyes, each reflecting an illustration positioned to the side. This provided evidence of how our brain combines into a single image what each eye observes. Wheatstone used this viewer to present his findings to the Royal Society in 1838, earning him the Royal Medal and widespread scientific recognition.

Stereoscopic photography was perhaps the epitome of the philosophical toys of its time: it was an optical device with both ludic and scientific value. This technology provided us with a unique aesthetic perspective from the 19th century and is arguably the most notable invention in mass visual culture before the advent of cinema. In its own time, its success was monumental. According to Life in Three Dimensions, ‘by the 1850s, stereoscopy covered everything from anecdotal scenes to a geographic and sociological survey of our planet (Richard, 1998, p. 177).’

The device that Wheatstone invented quickly evolved. In 1851, David Brewster miniaturised it to a handheld size and presented it at the Great Exhibition. Later, alongside Jules Duboscq, he produced a refined version called the ‘lenticular stereoscope’. This device was a radical reinvention of the original model, using lenses to create three-dimensional images, diverging from the reflective mirror principle introduced by Wheatstone in 1838. Their invention rapidly gained popularity. In less than two years, Brewster and Duboscq had sold over 250,000 units. The interest in the stereoscope was such that it even received the patronage of Queen Victoria. Although there was a decline in its popularity towards the end of the 19th century, due to the emergence of the carte-de-visite, interest in stereoscopy resurged in the 1890s, leading to the founding of the Stereoscopic Society in England and the Stéréo-Club Français in France.

But what made this technology so fascinating to Victorian society? What relationship did it establish between the observer and the photographs? According to Techniques of the Observer, ‘the stereoscope as a means of representation was inherently obscene, in the most literal sense. It shattered the scenic relationship between viewer, and object that was intrinsic to the fundamentally theatrical setup of the camera obscura. The very functioning of the stereoscope depended, as indicated, above, on the visual priority of the object closest to the viewer and on the absence of any mediation between eye and image (Crary, 1992, p. 127).’ The stereoscope, continues the author, sought to achieve not just similarity, but an immediate sense of tangibility. In this sense, from its inception as a commercial medium until it nearly disappeared in the late 1920s, the stereoscope served as a tool to replicate the world and simulate reality. It brought distant places into living rooms, and later, into the schools and libraries of the growing middle class in Europe and the United States, in a time when travel for leisure was only affordable for a privileged minority.

Jersey was not immune to the charm of this technology. In an 1859 advertisement in The Jersey Independent, Mr H. Thomas informed islanders that he had arrived from London with improved stereoscopes. Similar notices announced sales where the device, along with furniture and jewellery, was also available to the public. But the most intriguing advertisement came from the Chronique de Jersey. In an 1852 article, which was reprinted several times, there was an announcement titled ‘Collection du British Museum du Londres. Vue Au Stereoscope.’ This notice promised an immersive experience of the museum’s artefacts through stereoscopic photographs:

‘Le stéréoscope, en agrandissant l’image et produisant le relief de la réalité, permet à ceux qui possèdent la collection d’avoir une idée précise du musée sans quitter leur salon. Les amateurs de beaux arts pourront visiter tous les jours la collection du musée, au siège de l’association, 4 Crescent, chez M. Sabatier, un ancien élève de l’École Polytechnique de Paris.’

Mr Sabatier’s advertisement conveys more than a persuasive statement. After all, the photographs were not presented as mere representations of the artefacts. Instead, they promised a medium capable of triggering ‘le relief de la réalité’, as if the collection contained reality itself. Although such a notice may sound audacious, the truth is that it was quite common practice in the industry. During the same period, Sunbeam Tours, a British company, sold its own viewer, called the Sunscope, and offered virtual expeditions around the world through boxes containing a set of photographs and a booklet describing each image. In the booklet dedicated to Palestine, for example, the sedentary traveller was guided through Kirjath Jearim: ‘On our journey inland, we pass through the plain of Sharon on the way to the city of the Great King, and soon arrive at a place of some importance: the picturesque village of Abu.’

In the United States, Underwood & Underwood did the same and carved out a niche in the educational sector. Their growth was surprisingly rapid. By 1890, they had initiated a programme, recruiting college students as summer salesmen. This approach led to the deployment of up to 3,000 students in a single summer. By 1895, their offerings had expanded to include sets of 100 or more stereograms, complete with descriptive texts. These were primarily aimed at universities, and the company successfully secured the endorsement of forty such institutions. From 1897, Underwood & Underwood began employing full-time photographers, supplementing their team with freelancers. By 1901, their operations had expanded to the point where they were publishing 25,000 stereograms daily. Their flagship product was called the Underwood Travel System, which was promoted as an alternative to physical travel in an eloquent advertisement: ‘It provides travel, not for the body but for the mind, but travel that is no less real […] After all, in the usual mode of travel, the essential thing is not that a man’s body moves from one place to another, but that his mind comes into contact through the senses with famous objects and places.’

In philosophical terms, most of these notices approached stereography with a Cartesian dualism perspective, establishing a clear distinction between mind and body. Their products, after all, provided journeys ‘not for the body, but for the mind’ and, in that sense, promised an experience of a metaphysical nature. Although it is difficult to determine with certainty what Victorian users saw through the stereoscopic viewer, we can still form a reasonable conjecture. Consider that, devoid of the sensory and real experience of travel and physical contact with other cultures, the user’s mind had not only to create the illusion of reality but also to make sense of the scene in which it was immersed. These photographs were by design a solitary and intimate experience, where the only possible dialogue was between the image, the caption and the subjective interpretation of the result. The experience thus constituted an independent reality detached from the object they represented. Moreover, taking into account that the collections offered by the companies were carefully curated, presenting the exotic and the distant, they often ended up creating a hyperreality, a more aesthetically attractive or commercial version of reality, always through the prism of the Western vision.

In this sense, stereography became a powerful tool for constructing narratives and shaping perceptions. According to Parlor Illusions, these same conditions allowed Underwood & Underwood to represent the Belgian Congo while celebrating colonial values. The images presented Africans as exotic products ready for consumption and as raw material for the forces of colonial capitalism and spiritual conversion. These images did not challenge existing notions of Africa but reinforced them, presenting Africa not so much as a physical place, but as a locus of received and interconnected narratives. ‘Rather than soft-edged exoticism, the overall effect of the Underwood & Underwood images of the Belgian Congo is one of blunt utilitarianism (VanderKnyff, 2007, p. 57).’

Stereography served as a window to a new world and a mirror reflecting the tensions and contradictions of society. Despite these criticisms, the impact of these virtual journeys on the public’s imagination cannot be understated. They revolutionised the way people experienced the world and mirrored an era marked by a conflicting relationship between science and pseudoscience. This was, after all, the period when Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species, while optography – the notion that the last images seen before death were imprinted on the eyes – was gaining popularity. This led to speculation about whether a murder victim’s retinas could preserve an image of the killer. In this context, the stereoscope stands as a testament to the Victorian era’s fascination with the interplay of science and illusion. It served as a bridge between the empirical and the fantastical, offering a tangible demonstration of complex visual phenomena while simultaneously providing a window into an artificial three-dimensional realm. The stereoscope, with its unique ability to bring static images to life, encapsulates the era’s spirit of innovation and curiosity. It reminds us of a time when the boundaries between reality and illusion were being explored and expanded, paving the way for today’s immersive technologies.

Supported by The Jersey Community Foundation with funds from the Channel Islands Lottery