Greece through the Stereoscope

Rufus B. Richardson’s Greece through the Stereoscope consists of a series of stereographs of Greece, together with a companion volume with texts containing historical information on the sites and instructions on how to use the device. The stereoscope and the stereograph, their technological development, their uses and meanings, their cultural histories and genealogies, although fascinating issues, can hardly be characterised as central topics in the relevant scholarship. What are the reasons for this omission? Is it perhaps that in our eyes, used to much more convincing virtual environments – see the current craze for 3-D cinema, TV, and so on – stereoscopic images look rather like ‘cheap tricks’, perhaps too cheap for a serious scholar? We do not think so, since early capitalist phantasmagoria has become very popular in academic scholarship in recent years. ² A possible reason might be that the stereoscopic effect cannot be reproduced on the printed page, and only with great difficulty can be digitised and made accessible through a Powerpoint presentation, for example. In what follows, we will discuss this omission, connecting it with a further question concerning the stereoscope’s rather sudden demise, early in the twentienth century.