ABSTRACT
A diorama is partly a picture and partly a model. Usually there are model people or animals or landscape in the foreground, while the background is a painting; the skill of the diorama-maker lies in merging the two together in a lifelike way. Like tableaux, the diorama is a technique used in museums for well over a century. Dioramas are especially effective in natural history and geology museums, used to show the habitat in which animals live or the conditions under which different rocks were created. Fullsized dioramas are also used to portray domestic life in the past or in other societies, while small-scale ones portray famous battles or archaeological sites.
