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.
![](http://up.wiki.x.io/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6c/Tableau_vivant_by_Olga_Desmond._01.jpg/170px-Tableau_vivant_by_Olga_Desmond._01.jpg)
![](http://up.wiki.x.io/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a9/Sleeping_beauty_cast.jpg/220px-Sleeping_beauty_cast.jpg)
![](http://up.wiki.x.io/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9d/Tropenmuseum_Royal_Tropical_Institute_Objectnumber_60006559_Tableau_vivant_voorstellende_de_Goudd.jpg/220px-Tropenmuseum_Royal_Tropical_Institute_Objectnumber_60006559_Tableau_vivant_voorstellende_de_Goudd.jpg)
![](http://up.wiki.x.io/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/24/Estatua_viva_junto_a_la_catedral_-pza_Armas_Stgo_-f03-A.jpg/220px-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.