One way to hold tableau: a flat surface with things set out on it, and someone standing back to take in the whole arrangement at once. Fill that surface with figures and you have the painting — a crowd you read as one picture. Let living people do the holding still and you get the stage version, a picture that will breathe again in a moment. Take away the arranging altogether and a real room can fall into the same shape by accident, which is what a writer means today. And if you keep the flat ruled surface but put numbers on it instead of faces, you still have a tableau; the word has simply kept the board and let go of the paint.
From the word’s history
English took tableau unchanged from French tableau, which goes back to Old French tablel, a flat surface used mainly for painting on. The board comes first; everything else in the entry is either what goes on the board or something that behaves like it.
英文原封不動地借用了法文的 tableau，而它可以上溯到古французe 的 tablel，指一塊主要拿來作畫的平面板子。先有那塊板，這個字底下其他所有意思，不是板上擺的東西，就是行為像那塊板的東西。
Wiktionary, "tableau"
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