"Animal Locomotion"

Plate 312

collotype

title and copyright (print)

Animal Locomotion is a groundbreaking photographic study by the British photographer and pioneer of photographic technology Eadweard Muybridge, published in 1887. The work comprises 781 plates that capture the movements of people and animals in successive snapshots. Muybridge developed an early form of chronophotography, which is considered a precursor to film.
Muybridge emigrated to America at a young age and arrived in San Francisco in the mid-1850s. He photographed what is now Yosemite National Park, the lighthouses of the Pacific coast and the war against the Modoc tribe. In the spring of 1872, railroad entrepreneur Leland Stanford commissioned Muybridge to use his camera to answer the question of whether a galloping horse always has at least one hoof on the ground or whether all four hooves are briefly in the air.
Muybridge used a series of cameras that were triggered at short intervals to break movement down into individual images. The photographs were taken at the University of Pennsylvania, where he began a scientific investigation into the biomechanics of movement in 1884. The series shows men, women and animals in various motion sequences, including naked or lightly clothed people to analyze the human anatomy in motion.
Although Animal Locomotion was originally a scientific study, it has proven to be an artistic masterpiece. Muybridge created a new visual language that made movement visible as art - a revolution for painting, photography and film.
(Christoph Fuchs)