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, too, 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. Full-sized 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.
