![cover image](https://wikiwandv2-19431.kxcdn.com/_next/image?url=https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6c/Tableau_vivant_by_Olga_Desmond._01.jpg/640px-Tableau_vivant_by_Olga_Desmond._01.jpg&w=640&q=50)
Tableau vivant
static scene containing one or more actors or models / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A tableau vivant is when people pose and make the scene look like the one in a picture. People in a tableau vivant don't move or speak. The name comes from French, and translates as "living picture". The plural is tableaux vivants.
![Thumb image](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6c/Tableau_vivant_by_Olga_Desmond._01.jpg/640px-Tableau_vivant_by_Olga_Desmond._01.jpg)
![Thumb image](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a9/Sleeping_beauty_cast.jpg/320px-Sleeping_beauty_cast.jpg)
![Thumb image](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9d/Tropenmuseum_Royal_Tropical_Institute_Objectnumber_60006559_Tableau_vivant_voorstellende_de_Goudd.jpg/640px-Tropenmuseum_Royal_Tropical_Institute_Objectnumber_60006559_Tableau_vivant_voorstellende_de_Goudd.jpg)
![Thumb image](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/24/Estatua_viva_junto_a_la_catedral_-pza_Armas_Stgo_-f03-A.jpg/640px-Estatua_viva_junto_a_la_catedral_-pza_Armas_Stgo_-f03-A.jpg)
In Europe, tableaux vivants became popular towards the end of the 19th century. Sometimes, there was even music. Jean Sibelius composed his work Finlandia (1900) for a sequence of tableaux vivants.
At the beginning of the 20th century, they became notorious, because usually naked women would present them in revue theatres. The dancer Olga Desmond became well-known because of her posing naked in revues at the beginning of the 20th century.