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Kaleidoscope Links Scottish Scientist, Sir David Brewster, invented the first kaleidoscope in 1816. The tube housed free-moving bits of colored glass reflected by angled lenses and mirrors--generating fragmented, repititive patterns for the viewer to gaze at through the opposite end of the tube. Brewster derived the optical device from the Greek words "kalos" (beautiful), "eidos" (form), and "scopos" (watcher). Charles Bush, in the 1870s, expanding the kaleidoscope form and popularized it as consumer novelty, creating kaleidoscope boxes, new objects for kaleidoscopes, kaleidoscope stands, and the mass-production of his "parlor" kaleidoscope. I find the kaleidoscope to be, in many ways, a predecessor to the optical art movement in the late 1970s-1980s. The kaleidoscope also seems to be among the first 'immersive' forms of entertainment, with its emphasis on isolating and dominating the viewer's visual field. It's later incarnations not only took in light as a source from the outside world, but also 'live' imagery, generating a sort of pre-'goggle' abstract VR. Although symmetry and pattern have--in fine art, biology, and craftsmenship--preceded the kaleidoscope's invention, it has inspired the aesthetic compositions of contemporary painters and multi-media artists alike, returning to and expanding upon modes of seeing and representing design. Finally, born from Brewster's vision of optical beauty mixed with viewer manipulation, the kaleidoscope began as an easthetic experience (a piece of art) and became a form of entertainment. Submitted
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