On the passage of a man of the theatre through a rather brief moment in time: Henri Robin, performing astronomy in nineteenth century Paris

After an extensive tour throughout Europe, including venues such as Amsterdam, London and Brussels, the French entrepreneur and magician Henri Robin arrived in Paris in 1862, where he opened a new theatre on the legendary Boulevard du Temple. His arrival remarkably coincided with the destruction of this renowned hub of popular visual culture as it was cleared to make way for Hausmanns far-reaching programme of urban modernisation. Nonetheless, Robin started providing scientific entertainment for audiences to be both beguiled and informed, and managed to do so very successfully throughout the following five years. His evening shows consisted of a mix of astronomical sciences, magic and the evocation of ghosts. This article addresses Robins career in relation to the changing ideas of theatricality and his remarkable persistence in commingling astronomy and magic within a theatrical context. It will show that Robins initial concept of theatricality is concretised in his explicit demonstration to the spectator that they were at the theatre, and that this was indeed the place where the wonders of the heavens could pry open the matter of their own understanding. Correspondingly, Robins career fizzled out during the Second Empire, when scientific activities were dispersing rapidly across different public sites, altering and re-reshaping the appeal of the physiques amusantes. The rise of professional conférences alongside the waning appeal of what the critic Théophile Gaultier termed ocular spectacle, eventually forced theatre and astronomy into fixed and discreet domains. As such, the story of Henri Robin and his science-based spectacles articulates major shifts in the various relationships between art and science, and theatre and astronomy.

Publication year:2017

Keywords:A1 Journal article

BOF-keylabel:yes

Authors from:Higher Education

Accessibility:Open