Artists who study the animated forms of living things are indebted to Englishman Edward James Muggeridge. It’s rare indeed to find an established painter or sculptor without a copy of the 1957 classic, Animals in Motion, in the personal library.
Of course, this isn’t the identity for which Muggeridge is most easily referenced. After moving to California in 1855, the chap from Kingston upon Thames, London, started altering his given and surname until eventually arriving upon Eadweard J. Muybridge. As a man besotted with the scenic splendors of Yosemite Valley, Muybridge’s use of early camera technology made him a forerunner to photographers such as Ansel Adams; an influence on painter Albert Bierstadt; and subsequently a catalyst to the motion picture industry.
Muybridge (1830-1904) lived a dramatic life. However, it was his settling of a question posed by California Governor Leland Stanford that make his work relevant to artists who portray animals in motion. Stanford’s inquiry, which had persisted as a matter of debate for centuries if not longer: When a horse canters, how many of its legs rise up off the ground at once?
If your answer is four, you are correct and corroboration resides with Muybridge’s then-ingenious assemblage of consecutive still photo mages, brought together in the film, Muybridge’s Horses In Motion, that shows how steeds run, forever altering the false perceptions that some steadfastly defended.
Muybridge's Animals in Motion set to music by Philip Glass
Muybridge is back, restored to public appreciation with an exhibition,In Helios: Eadweard Muybridge in a Time of Change now on display at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. through July 18, 2010. It is the first major retrospective in half a century. (Helios was the pseudonym he used as a photographer based in San Francisco).
Beyond northern California, Muybridge made his greatest contribution to the study of how creatures move at the University of Pennsylvania. There, he assembled thousands of images, using a device he invented called a zoopraxiscope, using an array of zoo and domestic animals, as well as human adults (some naked) and children, while engaged in a variety of basic activities from walking to crawling. Today his work is revered as art springing forth from scientific research.
The book Animals in Motion features 4,000 individual photographs (183 plates) of horses, bison, kangaroos, deer, lions, house cats, dogs and 28 other species. If you have ever wondered about the mechanics of how creatures canter, gallop, leap, amble, trot, pace, and, in the case of birds, fly, Muybridge shared the fascination. He showed why the advent of the camera was—and remains—an important tool for informing painting and sculpture. Enjoy the video of Muybridge's work set to an original composition by Philip Glass, who wrote a series of pieces in tribute to Muybridge
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