first aerial view

Essays
“For the Sake of the Prospect”: Experiencing the World from Above in the Late 18th Century

“For the Sake of the Prospect”: Experiencing the World from Above in the Late 18th Century

The first essay in a two-part series in which Lily Ford explores how balloon flight transformed our ideas of landscape. We begin with a look at the unique set of images included in Thomas Baldwin's Airopaidia (1786) — the first "real" overhead aerial views. more