ANTIQUE TOYS

The Thaumatrope is an optical toy that was invented by John Ayrton Paris in England in 1824. It contains a disc with two different images on each side and two strings attached to both ends of each one of them. When the strings are twirled quickly between the fingers, the two pictures become as one due to the persistence of vision. The Thaumatrope was the predecessor of Zoetrope and Praxinoscope which are popular animation devices from the recent past.

The Praxinoscope is a device used for animation. It is the successor of the Zoetrope. It was invented in France in 1877 by Charles-Emile Raynaud. Similar to the Zoetrope, it uses a strip of images placed around the inner surface of a rotating cylinder. In comparison to the Zoetrope, the Praxinoscope uses more advanced technology by replacing the narrow viewing slots with an inner circle of mirrors. Looking at them, you can see a sequence of images, creating the illusion of movement.

The anamorphic painting was a very popular form of art in the XIX century. It consists of stretched images that are refracted into a mirror surface, such as cylinder, cone or pyramid, in order to reveal the hidden art. Interesting fact - the terminology "anamorphosis" was first introduced in the XVII century, as Leonardo da Vinci described it in his notes.