-The Horse in Motion

Eadweard Muybridge (born Edward Muggeridge), is famous for his pioneering work in the study of motion and early motion picture projection. Born in England, Muybridge left his homeland in 1850 to make his fortune in the United States. He gained world fame in 1868 with his large photographs of the Yosemite Valley. Leland Stanford, then governor of California, hired Muybridge to help him settle a bet that at some point in a horse’s gallop, all four hooves are off the ground. In 1872, Muybridge began using a complex photographic method to capture horses in motion. In 1879, he proved that indeed all four hooves of a galloping horse are off the ground during the stride.

Muybridge continued his pioneering work on animal locomotion by using multiple cameras to capture movement in stop-motion photographs and also invented the zoopraxiscope - a device for projecting motion pictures that predates the perforated flexible film strip used in cinematography. During the 1880s, he worked at the University of Pennsylvania and produced over 100,000 images of animals and humans in motion, capturing movement otherwise indistinguishable to the human eye. Muybridge laid the groundwork for the motion picture industry, thereby revealing a new universe of motion. He combined his artistic vision in photography with scientific analysis to achieve widespread cultural recognition that is continued by Hollywood films today.

Gift of Robert B. Honeyman, ‘20

Lehigh University Catalog Record: https://asa.lib.lehigh.edu/Record/262337

A version of this text has been digitized and is available through the Internet Archive.

J. D. B. Stillman (1819-1888) and Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904).
The Horse in Motion as Shown by Instantaneous Photography, with a Study on Animal Mechanics Founded on Anatomy and the Revelations of the Camera, in which is Demonstrated the Theory of Quadrupedal Locomotion.
Boston: J.R. Osgood and Company, 1882.