Understanding: The Magic Lantern

The magic lantern is an early type of image projector that was created in approximately 1650 by Christian Huygens. The device worked by reflecting light through a hole that passed through a hand drawn image on a glass plate. This could then be focused so the image was clear. The main purpose of this projector was simply to entertain or for educational purposes. However, the magic lantern was quite inefficient, as the only light sources available at the time were oil lamps or candles, which made it very difficult to get a strong, bright projection. 

More advanced versions of the magic lantern began to arise when people began to use the projectors to project moving image. This was achieved through having mechanical slides, or having two separate slides and manually moving one of the slides to create the illusion of movement. Chromotrope slides, which produced moving geometric shapes, were operated by a pulley wheel that turned a glass disk.

The magic lantern isn't used today to project moving or still images, however, there are many modern advances on the magic lantern that are used in today's society to project sequential imagery such as cinema projectors. This invention led to the development of such projectors that we see today and was an important step for the animation world.