De Moderne Tijd - Volume 6, Issue 2/3, 2022

Indulging in emotions. Belgian anti-alcohol propaganda in the light of the projection lantern (1897-1914)

The use of the projection lantern for anti-alcohol propaganda in Britain, France, and the United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has already been comprehensively researched and discussed. Several international studies concluded that temperance campaigns notably contributed to the development and success of the projection lantern medium. For the very first time, this contribution focuses on the Belgian context and places it in an international perspective, demonstrating that the lantern was also frequently used in Belgium by scientific, Catholic, and liberal associations. Inspired by temperance activities in England and France, the projection lantern was mobilised for the battle against alcohol abuse in Belgium and stimulated social and moral change amongst the Belgian population. This article also provides insight into the use of the lantern as an intermedial and multimodal communication medium and its potential to propagate social and moral messages, particularly by stirring the emotions of the audience.

Between politics and self-promotion. The pro-Boer lantern lectures of Johannes Adam Wormser (1899-1900)

The projection lantern played a prominent role in the Second Boer War (1899-1900) as a ‘media war’. In the Netherlands, this technology was widely used to fuel pro-Boer sentiment. Politician and publisher Johan Adam Wormser jr. (1845-1916) can be considered a pioneer in this development. This article poses the question: which rhetorical strategies did Wormser use in his lantern lectures and which purposes did they serve? The answers shed light on the specificity of lantern lectures, as well as pivotal aspects of lantern culture in the Netherlands of the fin-de-siècle. The projection lantern offered involved citizens and mass audiences new opportunities to engage in the visual culture and public debate surrounding the war that were not dictated by the state, ideological institutions, nor by the press or the entertainment economy.

Brave Russians, cruel Chinese and pious missionaries. Yulij Lukyanovich Yelets and the phenomenon of illustrated lectures in the Belgian belle époque

This contribution sheds light on the rhetorical use of the projection lantern in the Belgian public lecture circuit at the turn of the twentieth century by means of a microstoria. By analysing a lantern lecture delivered by the Russian writer and lieutenant colonel Yulij Lukyanovich Yelets (1862-1932), presented to the Royal Geographical Society of Antwerp (KAGA) on 9 October 1903, we question how Yelets’ public performance was rhetorically constructed through word and lantern images. Through an in-depth exploration of the social and intellectual biography of Yelets, insight is gained into how lecturers and organisations found each other in the Belgian belle époque, and what the underlying reasons for lantern performances like these might have been. The content of Yelets’ lecture concerned a topic that strongly touched on much more widely spread sentiments and sensitivities in Belgian society at the time, namely the Chinese Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901) and the related ‘yellow peril’. It will be argued that public illustrated lectures fulfilled an important social role in the communication of new ideas, knowledge, or, in the case of Yelets, popular geopolitical ideas and stereotypes. Public lectures were seldom at the basis of these popular or (scientific) ideas, but they did contribute, in their own way, to the public opinion surrounding them and to their broader dissemination and communication.

With an oxyhydrogen lantern in a billiard room. The illustrated lectures of Ernst Cohen

The Utrecht University professor of Chemistry, Ernst Cohen (1869-1944) gave lectures illustrated with an optical lantern between at least 1899 and 1938. His presentations addressed different audiences, from colleagues at chemical conventions to members of societal and professional associations and audiences at adult education centres. The range of topics he covered was equally broad: from lectures on the use of photography in the sciences to chemical issues and entertaining presentations on caricature and the natural sciences. Cohen used the projected image for a variety of purposes that were linked to his outreach activities as an academic who wanted to address audiences both inside and outside academia. This contribution retraces Cohen’s activities as a lecturer using the lantern to reach diverse audiences and discusses the topics that he chose for his illustrated lectures.

The traveller, a congenial candidate for the 1912 elections. Political propaganda in Arthur Buysse’s travelogue on Constantinople

In the winter of 1910-1911, liberal politician Arthur Buysse held at least 10 lantern lectures about his journey to Constantinople in liberal associations and social circles in Ghent, Belgium. The lectures were closely intertwined with other media such as newspaper reports and travel photography. An analysis of this intermediary network demonstrates that Buysse’s lantern readings were more than a picturesque travel report. Buysse subtly addressed less obvious issues, such as the need for Dutch-language education and secularization in his lectures. By adding deftly political messages, Buysse prepared the audience for the liberal party’s reorientation in the run-up to the 1912 election. This contribution examines to what extent the lantern readings profiled Buysse as a reliable helmsman for political reorientation in the liberal party.

By children’s train to Belgium. Socially engaged lantern lectures by Floris Prims on the Belgian-Hungarian Children’s Campaign (1924-1927)

From 1923 onwards, children’s trains travelled from Hungary to Belgium (and back). Upon arrival, the children were placed in Catholic foster homes. There, they could recuperate from the hardships they had endured during the First World War and the subsequent revolutions in their home country. The attitude of Belgian Catholics toward foreign countries can be broadly framed within an ‘internationalist turn’ of contemporary Catholicism. As a result, there was extensive propaganda in Belgium for this Children’s Action. One of the pivotal figures was priest and historian Floris Prims. In August 1924, he travelled on a children’s train to Budapest, after which he gave dozens of lantern lectures throughout Flanders about the situation in Hungary and the importance of this Belgian-Hungarian Children’s Work. In this article, we frame Prims’ lectures within the Catholic struggle against the rising of socialism and communism. Thus, the central question of this article is on how the lantern was used for the social mobilisation of the Catholic population.

Fin-de-siècle vibration-mania. Synesthetic light projection in the wake of Jean Delville’s art

Jean Delville (1867-1953), a Belgian symbolist artist and a pivotal figure in fin-de-siècle occultism in Brussels, was inspired by numerous synaesthetic performances: shadow plays, serpentine dance, and colour organs. These performances were perceived as musical paintings or experiments with colour-hearing, audition-colorée, or farbenhören and often made use of projection techniques. This contribution sheds light on the artistic, spiritual, and even therapeutic context of synaesthetic projection closely intertwined with Jean Delville’s interests and activities. It demonstrates how the lantern projector turned into a ‘magic lantern’ in synaesthetic performances. By materialising (in)visible vibrations, it paradoxically propagated an antimaterialist vision of life.