Muybridge (the Human And Animal Locomotion Photographs. 45th Ed.)

Par (auteur) Nadel Dan; Par (auteur) Smith Zak; Édité par Hanson Dian; Par (artiste) Muybridge Eadweard
Short description/annotation:
The life and work of Eadweard Muybridge (1830–1904), pioneer in the visual studies of animal and human movement. With a detailed chronology and many plates, this book features in particular many images from the groundbreaking Animal Locomotion, as well as from Muybridge’s handmade and extremely rare first album, The Attitudes of Animals in Motion.
Description:

English photographer Eadweard Muybridge (1830–1904) is a pioneer in visual studies of human and animal locomotion. In 1872, he famously helped settle a bet for former California governor Leland Stanford by photographing a galloping horse. Muybridge invented a complex system of electric shutter releases that captured freeze frames—proving conclusively, for the first time, that a galloping horse lifts all four hooves off the ground for a fraction of a second. For the next three decades, Muybridge continued his quest to fully catalog many aspects of human and animal movement, shooting hundreds of horses and other animals, —as well as nude or draped subjects engaged in various activities such as running, walking, boxing, fencing, and descending a staircase (the latter study inspired Marcel Duchamp’s famous 1912 painting).This book traces the life and work of Muybridge, from his early thinking about anatomy and movement to his latest photographic experiments. Many plates of Muybridge’s groundbreaking Animal Locomotion (1887) are reproduced here. In addition, Muybridge’s handmade and extremely rare first illustrated album, The Attitudes of Animals in Motion (1881), is reproduced in large part. A detailed chronology by British researcher Stephen Herbert throws new light on one of the most important pioneers of photography.

Review quote:
“A gigantic undertaking on the pioneer of photographic studies of human motion.”
Biographical note:
Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904), born in England but active as a photographer in the United States for most of his adventurous life, was a key figure in photographic history. On giant glass plates he captured the natural splendor of Yosemite and photographed panoramas of San Francisco. He notoriously shot and killed his wife''s lover, but his fame was earned by solving the problems of short-time exposure—and exploiting its possibilities. His subsequent studies of human and animal movement became the ultimate passion of Muybridge, the chronophotographer and predecessor of cinema.