Animal Locomotion. An Electro-Photographic Investigation of Consecutive Phases of Animal Movements. Commenced 1872 - Completed 1885. Volume I, Men (Nude)

Art Historical Context

Eadweard Muybridge’s *Animal Locomotion* stands as a landmark achievement in both photography and the study of movement. Commissioned in the 1870s and published in 1887, this monumental work comprises over 20,000 images captured through an innovative system of multiple cameras triggered in rapid sequence. Volume I, devoted to nude male subjects, presents the human body in precise, consecutive phases of walking, running, jumping, and other actions—revealing details invisible to the naked eye. The book’s photogravure plates transformed scientific documentation into an artistic resource. Artists...

About the Artist

Eadweard Muybridge · 1830–1904

Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904) was an English-American photographer who revolutionized the understanding of motion through his pioneering chronophotographic studies. Born Edward James Muggeridge in Kingston upon Thames, England, he emigrated to America and became famous first for his dramatic landscape photographs of Yosemite Valley, then for his groundbreaking motion studies that proved horses li...