Les Diableries is the title of a series of stereoscopic photographs published in Paris during the 1860s. [1] The photographs, commonly known as stereoviews, portray sculpted clay vignettes which depict scenes of daily life in Hell. Much of the subject matter was satirical and mirrored the corruption and excess of Paris during the Second Empire. Napoleon III's authoritarian rule was repeatedly the subject of criticism, as was the decadent lifestyle of the bourgeoisie. [2] Creation and publication [ edit ] Unanico Group is an internationally award-winning entertainment company co-founded by Jason Jameson and Paul Laikin. Based in central London, Unanico Group has two divisions: Unanico Entertainment and Unanico Studios. The talented team of both divisions are multi-cultural and multi-lingual, and bring decades of experience in the entertainment industry to projects and partnerships. For more than 40 years now, Brian May has been staring into the eyes of the Devil. It all began one day in Portobello Road Market, when he was shown a piece of card on which were printed two scenes of cavorting skeletons and demons. This was his introduction to Diableries, pictures created by 19th-century French artists, showing Satan and his minions both at work and play. What made these images still more memorable was that, when viewed through a stereoscopic eyepiece, they coalesced into a three-dimensional whole.

It is with excitement and awe that the three authors will remind the French of this piece of their national heritage which, though hugely popular and quite seditious in its time, was only known until lately to a few collectors. Until M.Pellerin began his researches into the dark corners of the French 1860s, no-one among those fascinated by the images had any clue as to the secrets concealed in the pictures – the stories they were really telling. It’s a claim German researchers Claus-Christian Carbon and Vera Hesslinger assert in their study of Leonardo’s famous portrait, “Mona Lisa.” The pair have been analyzing the well-known version of La Giaconda that hangs at Paris’ Louvre, as well as an eerily similar copy known as the “Prado Mona Lisa,” housed at the Museo del Prado in Spain, and have concluded that the two artworks — taken together — may amount to the first stereoscopic image in the world. The Complete Edition of the critically acclaimed, Diableries: Stereoscopic Adventures in Hell, publishes on 28th October and includes the final two cards, which after a worldwide quest Brian and his co-authors, Denis Pellerin and Paula Fleming, finally located.

In the first edition of this book, published in 2013, there were two stereo cards missing from the Diableries series! In 2018, after a worldwide search, finally the last card was found, and is published for the very first time in this new edition of Diableries, along with the story of its discovery. In a frightening vision of Hell, the winged Devil uses a pitchfork to cram condemned souls into a boiling cauldron. May, 66, has been fascinated with Diableries since he stumbled upon one while digging through piles of junk at the Portobello Road Market in West London in the late ’60s. He asked around, but nobody knew quite what the card filled with the devil and skeletons was. Eventually, he traveled to Paris to dig for more information. In this scene, the devil is getting people drunk and stealing their souls. That’s him hanging from a pillar, filling a woman’s glass with champagne. This image was signed by Pierre Hennetier, the originator of the Diableries. To sum up, as far as Renaissance 3-D paintings go, the truth of the matter seems to be that many artists created more than one version of their favourite scenes, sometimes painting in places quite far apart geographically, so they must have carried with them very detailed drawings which they were able to transfer to the surface they were working on. They were surprisingly accurate but there were of course some discrepancies between versions. It is these discrepancies, minor variations, that lead some people to think that they see a stereo image when fusing the two paintings. But, as we’ve seen, these variations are not consistent with any deliberate scheme of parallax. Sorry, guys, the 3-D image we all wanted to be there is simply not there.

Calling them “high art,” Mays says, “I think they are absolutely saturated with, not only beauty and invention, but meaning as well.” In the mid-1800s, a new craze based around the recently invented art of photography. Stereoscopy involved two images, printed side by side, and looked at through a special viewer. Once your eyes had adjusted – anything from a few seconds to a few minutes, depending on the individual – you would see the photograph in startling three dimensions, with depth and realism. Thus was born the intermittently popular 3D boom, one that has developed in technique and style over the subsequent two centuries, but which is essentially aimed at the same result – a sense of depth and wonder for visual images normally seen ‘flat’. You can now enjoy the world of the Diableries through the book Diableries: Stereoscopic Adventures In Hell, published and co-written by Brian May – yes, the Queen bloke. He is a lifelong collector of stereoscope cards, and the whole run of Diableries is included in the book, alongside a newly designed fold-out viewer. It’s a genuinely magnificent book, a luxurious and hefty volume that every bookshelf will be enhanced by.I think it must have been comforting for people to see people in hell enjoying themselves,’ said May (centre). Photograph: Supplied

ZOE: Well there’s an exhibition to celebrate devilish Diableries, which is taking place at Soho’s Century Club in London, Monday the 28th of October. Brian, you’re gonna be there. People will be able to come and get their book signed but also there’s a film that goes with this, isn’t there? The Diableries film “One Night In Hell”, which has been put together by Jason Jameson and James Hall. ZOE: Yeah, amazing. Well, of course, and if we talk about the actual … and what are the machines called that people use? Just for comparison, here’s another piece of wishful thinking, so often quoted in histories of 3-D as an early example of three-dimensional imaging. They’re wrong ! It’s not ! Jacopo Chimenti da Empoli made these two sketches around 1600, and lots of people have sworn that this is a stereo pair. But, again, a little careful analysis shows that the variations between the positions of corresponding lines in the two pictures are in fact random, and you get just as much 3-D no matter which way round you position the two. Moreover an equal number of the supposed ‘parallax differences’ are vertical instead of horizontal, which makes nonsense of the assertion that Jacopo knew what stereoscopy was. This book, the fruit of half a lifetime’s study by three impassioned authors, brings every single one of the published Diableries into the 21st Century for the very first time. Some of them are so rare that at the time of writing there is no known full collection of the originals of these masterpieces.

Take up Casino wars for 100 % free.

Gothic Victorian underworld of temptation, seduction, retribu- tion and devilish fun brought alive in colour and 3D"– Amateur Photographer D photography is based on a phenomenon called Stereopsis. Stereopsis happens in everyday life when our brain fuses two slightly dissimilar (flat) pictures from two slightly different viewpoints, one from each eye, and miraculously, instantaneously, creates a solid image in our heads. The two pictures are different because our eyes, positioned a few inches apart, see slightly different amounts of an object partially hidden behind another, and slightly different views of any solid object. These differences are called parallax. Our brains cleverly interpret these parallax differences as depth information. It’s happening all the time for most of us whenever our eyes are open, without any conscious thought. The benefits of this to our survival in a predatory world must have been enormous in the evolution of our species. It gave us an instant awareness of how close any potential danger (or food source) was to us.

Brian May is one of the world’s foremost collectors of Victorian stereo cards. He published his first book about these cards in 2009. 'A Village Lost And Found' contained a complete series of stereo cards taken in a small Oxfordshire village, and was a huge success and the subject of a great deal of media attention. The craze for stereoscopes came to an end as the new century started – no matter how sensational the images, the new motion pictures were hard to compete with. But the concept didn’t so much die as evolve – in 1939 the View-Master was launched, which was essentially a miniaturised version of the concept, with 3D images on a circular reel that you would view on the handy viewer, originally made of bakelite and later in plastic. Aimed more at children, it has remained a popular thing in various incarnations over the decades. And the 21st century has seen the rise of the VR set, which is surely just the latest incarnation of the format – perhaps some enterprising games developer can create a VR Diableries world for viewers to explore – we’d definitely jump on board the VR market for that.There is just so much detail in these images, so much to look at,” says May. “They repay you if you take your time and take everything in.” Diableries - Stereoscopic Adventures In Hell' was published on 31 October 2013, and was written by Brian May, Denis Pellerin and Paula Fleming. Often the cards are satirising the French authorities or threats from emerging technology. For example, one of the newly discovered cards, Satan’s Train Connection, shows a horrible railway accident.