Eadweard Muybridge. 1878 C.E. English- American. Albumen print
Muybridge spent the rest of his career improving his technique, making a huge variety of motion studies, lecturing, and publishing. As a result of his motion studies, he is regarded as one of the fathers of the motion picture. Muybridge's motion studies showed the way to a new art form.
Artist: Eadweard Muybridge
Date: 1878
Medium: Photograph
Movement: Realism
Context:
· Photography had advanced far enough to be able to capture moments that the human eye couldn’t
· Cameras took stills at evenly-spaced points on a horseracing track to create the illusion of continuous motion.
· Used a device called a “zoopraxiscope”
Function
· Motion study of a racing horse and jockey
· To establish the impressiveness and potential of photography
· Bridged the gap between still photography and moviemaking
Content
· 4 rows and 4 columns in a rectangle
· Each box is a still shot of a racing horse with a jockey
· Each still captures a different moment in the horse’s stride
o Collectively, the photos create a sense of movement; the viewer envisions a running horse instead of a single-moment shot of a horse.
Form
· 16 still photographs combined in a series
· Horse and jockey are in profile (seen from a bystander’s view on the side of the track)
· While each individual still of the horse and jockey is beautiful, the importance of the work lies in its numbers
· Together, the images tell a story
o Elevate photography from still to motion by multiplying the images represented
