Muybridge: Shooting a Moving Target
Back in the 1870s, Eadweard Muybridge set the stage for cinema by shooting photos of moving targets, such as horses, gymnasts, and nudes serving tea.
From "Animal Locomotion," by Eadweard Muybridge
This was quite a feat, given the cumbersome process of photography in those days. (Think glass negatives and chemical baths.) Muybridge had to trick out cameras that could take a number of photos in succession and create a device that could flash them in front of the viewer’s eye. For this, he invented the zoopraxiscope, which you can see in all its steampunk splendor at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington. The exhibit “Helios: Eadweard Muybridge in a Time of Change” runs through Sunday.
I expected Muybridge to be little more than a historical blip on the path to movies as we know them. The exhibit gives us a fuller picture of the man who scaled the peaks of Yosemite with thirty pounds of equipment and later became one of the first to photograph the native peoples of Alaska. His seventeen-foot panorama of San Francisco is one of the better documents of the city before the great earthquake of 1906. Working mostly by government commission, he was well-known long before a railroad baron named Leland Stanford asked him to photograph his horse in motion. (Legend has it that Stanford wanted to settle a bet as to whether a horse lifts all four legs off the ground while running.)
Anglo-American photographer Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904)
The British-born photographer looks like a stern portrait of the north wind, with a craggy face and long white beard. In temper he resembles one of those great American personalities like Barnum or Edison, who not only knows his craft, but knows how to sell it. We see a publicity brochure he sent to an organization with a note offering free copies to promote his work and an eye-catching business card that’s actually a collage of his photos.
Although he inherited and in some ways overturned the 19th century tradition of landscape painting, he had no pretensions of art for art’s sake. He photographed shop windows for advertisements, sold tourist views of the California wilderness, and devoted an entire album to the mansion of his wealthy patron, Leland Stanford.
That’s not to say the photos aren’t well-crafted. The signs beside the photos call attention to their artistry: the disorienting images of sheer cliffs that give the viewer no place to stand, the composition of straight pines and zigzagging streams, the play of reflections and fog. I admit that in these days of snapshots, the fading pictures of places I knew well were a bit repetitive. Still, I fell prey to a craze that’s both old and new. With 3-D glasses, the stereographic photos leaped out like pop-up books.
Sterographic image of Grasshopper Falls
Photography kept Muybridge on the road and perhaps led to troubles at home. Finding an intimate note his wife wrote on the back of a photo of one Harry Larkyns – a photo Muybridge hadn’t taken – Muybridge began to suspect an affair. He eventually tracked the man down and shot him. (The courts ruled this as justifiable homicide, in thanks perhaps to Stanford paying for Muybridge’s defense.) This interrupted but did not halt his experiments in shooting – with a camera! — moving targets.
You can watch some of these experiments on YouTube. Muybridge, of course, wouldn’t have seen them as movies. He took a series of still images that can now be animated and projected on a screen.
Woman walking down stairs, by Eadweard Muybridge
This is where Muybridge becomes more than a curious figure from a cinema studies textbook. There’s a faint echo of Chaplin and Keaton in th
e melancholy charm of these pictures. At least part of the humor is intentional. Muybridge recruited some Olympic gymnasts to wrestle, fence, and box while wearing little or no clothing. Suddenly, Muybridge enters the picture in a neat suit and shakes hands with one of the muscular young men, who remains perfectly nonchalant.
Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2, Marcel Duchamp (1912)
In another short, a nude woman sits in a chair while another serves her tea. Again, complete nonchalance.
Even the famous pictures of running animals have their moments. Stallion running, check. Antelope running, check. Man running, check. Lazy pig just barely stumbling ahead of a farmer waving a whip. It’s the humor of timing and sequence, really.
One picture is just a woman descending a staircase and turning around — an inspiration, perhaps, for painter Marcel Duchamp.
Yes, these were scientific ventures that would help us study the flight of parrots and breed better horses. But the pleasure of film wasn’t lost on Muybridge’s contemporaries. The organizers at the 1893 world’s fair in Chicago gave Muybridge a booth*, not in the sections for art or industry, but on the Midway Plaisance, where they kept the belly dancers and the Ferris wheel.
More than titillation, these films are brimming with the excitement of a new medium; there’s nothing tired about them. The camera brings a child’s eye to the simplest of motions, as if to say, Here. This is a man. Isn’t he amazing?
Back in the 1890s, Eadweard Muybridge set the stage for cinema by shooting photos of moving targets, such as horses, gymnasts, and nudes serving tea.
This was quite a feat, given the cumbersome process of photography in those days. (Think chemical baths and ??.) Muybridge had to trick out a camera that could take a number of photos in succession and find a device that could flash them in front of the viewer’s eye. For this, he had the zoetrope, which you can see in all its steampunk splendor at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington. (The exhibit “???” runs through Sunday.)
I expected Muybridge to be little more than a historical blip on the path to movies as we know them. The exhibit gives us a fuller picture of the man who scaled the peaks of Yosemite with thirty pounds of equipment and became one of the first to photograph the native peoples of Alaska. His seventeen-foot panorama of San Francisco is one of the better documents of the city before the great earthquake of 1906. Working mostly by government commission, he was well-known long before a railroad baron named Leland Stanford asked him to photograph his horse in motion. (Legend has it that Stanford wanted to settle a bet as to whether a horse lifts all four legs off the ground while running.)
The man behind the lens resembles a stern portrait of the north wind, with a craggy face and long white beard. In temper he resembles one of those great American personalities like Barnum or Edison, who not only know his craft, but knows how to sell it. We see a publicity brochure he sent to an organization with a note offering free copies to promote his work and an eye-catching business card that’s actually a collage of his photos.
Alhtough he inherited and in some ways overturned the 19th century tradition of landscape painting, he had no pretensions of art for art’s sake. He photographed shop windows for advertisements, sold tourist views of the California wilderness, and devoted an entire album to the mansion of his wealthy patron, Leland Stanford.
That’s not to say the photos aren’t well-crafted. The signs beside the photos call attention to their artistry: the disorienting images of sheer cliffs that give the viewer no place to stand, the composition of straight pines and zigzagging streams, the play of reflections and fog. I admit that in these days of snapshots, the fading pictures of places I knew well were a bit repetitive. Still, I fell prey to a craze that’s both old and new. Thanks to 3-D glasses, the stereographic photos lept out like pop-up books.
Photography kept Muybridge on the road and perhaps led to troubles at home. Finding an intimate note his wife wrote on the back of a photo of one Harry Larkyns – a photo Muybridge hadn’t taken – Muybridge began to suspect an affair. He eventually tracked the man down and shot him. (The courts ruled this as justifiable homicide, in thanks perhaps to Stanford paying for Muybridge’s defense.) This interrupted but did not halt his experiments in shooting – with a camera! — moving targets.
You can watch some of these experiments on YouTube. Muybridge, of course, wouldn’t have seen them as a movie. He took a series of still images that can now be animated and projected on a screen.
This is where Muybridge becomes more than a curious figure from a cinema studies textbook. There’s a faint echo of Chaplin and Keaton in the melancholy charm of these pictures. At least part of the humor is intentional. Muybridge recruited some Olympic gymnasts to wrestle, fence, and box while wearing little or no clothing. Suddenly, Muybridge enters the picture in a neat suit and shakes hands with one of the muscular young men, who remains perfectly non-chalant.
In another short, a nude woman sits in a chair while another serves her tea. Again, complete nonchalance.
Even the famous pictures of running animals have their moments. Stallion running, check. Antelope running, check. Man running, check. Lazy pig just barely stumbling ahead of a farmer waving a whip. It’s the humor of timing and sequence, really.
One picture is just a woman descending a staircase and turning around.
Yes, these were scientific ventures that would help us study the flight of parrots and breed better horses. But the pleasure of film wasn’t lost on Muybridge’s contemporaries. The organizers at the 1893 world’s fair in Chicago gave Muybridge a booth*, not in the sections for art or industry, but on the Midway Plaisance, where they kept the belly dancers and the Ferris wheel.
More than titillation, these films are brimming with the excitement of a new medium; there’s nothing tired about them. The camera brings a child’s eye to the simplest of motions, as if to say, Here. This is a man. Isn’t this amazing?
* Thereby confirming my theory that the World’s Columbian Exposition is a six-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon-game for everything that is truly awesome.
Frank Lloyd Wright … was inspired by Japanese architecture, which he first saw at the Columbian Exposition.
The great wild western frontier … was first declared closed by Frederick Jackson Turner, who delivered his famous speech at the Columbian Exposition.
The Ferris wheel … actually, I’m not really into Ferris wheels.
But they made their debut at the Columbian Exposition!
