Eadweard J. Muybridge 9 April 1830 – 8 May 1904) was an English photographer who spent much of his life in the United States. He is known for his pioneering work on animal locomotion, which used multiple cameras to capture motion, and his zoopraxiscope, a device for projecting motion pictures that pre-dated the flexible perforated filmstrip. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eadweard_Muybridge
“Muybridge was a brilliant and eccentric photographer, gained worldwide fame photographing animal and human movement imperceptible to the human eye. Hired by railroad baron Leland Stanford in 1872, Muybridge used photography to prove that there was a moment in a horse’s gallop when all four hooves were off the ground at once. He spent much of his later career at the University of Pennsylvania, producing thousands of images that capture progressive movements within fractions of a second.” (National Museum of American History) americanhistory.si.edu/muybridge/
Muybridge's human figure in motion:
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Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase No.2 (1912)
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Tonight I choose Eadweard Muybridge an early innovator of art and photography. The other day I was again wandering around at a metal recycling center with my camera and spotted this odd looking metal construction. A cooling unit of some kind I suppose, and saw the edges as a moving or dancing figure. Finding a place with a myriad of subjects seems to really heighten my design minds eye. I thought of movement of the metal,but not of Muybridge till later at home reviewing the photos. When I looked at his work on line, it all just clicked. I’m getting re- educated in the visual arts again through this project. As I looked at and read about Muybridge's work I thought he really was the forerunner of much of the modern art that followed in the twentieth century. If you read the bio info above you’ll note that he started photographing the motion studies in 1872. I think his work has had a direct and profound influence on the Cubist and Futurist painters and others in the 20th century. For me a great example is the painting “Nude Descending a Staircase No.2 “ by Marcel Duchamp painted in 1912, approximately forty years after Muybrideg”s work started. There are many examples of the connections between his work and “modern art” movements of the 20th century. I hope you’ll look and make some new connections yourself.
Thanks for looking.
