Plate Number 390. Farmer, mowing grass
Medium
collotype
Dimensions
image: 15.4 × 45.4 cm (6 1/16 × 17 7/8 in.) sheet: 47.6 × 60.3 cm (18 3/4 × 23 3/4 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase, 1887)
Accession Number
2014.79.409
Art Historical Context
Step into the pioneering world of motion photography with *Plate Number 390., mowing grass* by Eadweard Muy, created in 1887. This collotype print captures a humble farmer in mid-stride, scything through tall grass in a sequence of frames that freeze everyday labor into artistic revelation. Part of Muybridge's groundbreaking *Animal Locomotion* series—781 plates documenting human and animal movement—this image exemplifies his obsession with dissecting motion, building on his earlier fame for proving that all four of a horse's hooves leave the ground at once. Muybridge's collotype technique, a...
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...