Art Institute of Chicago

Animal Locomotion, Plate 758

Eadweard Muybridge

Date

1887

Medium

Collotype, from "Animal Locomotion"

Culture

England

Department

Photography and Media

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

In the late 1870s, Eadweard Muybridge pioneered a method of "instantaneous photography," a technique developed to freeze time by capturing motion. In order to create such sequences, he set up a battery of cameras, 24 in this instance, connected by a clockwork mechanism that triggered the shutters one by one at rhythmic intervals. Muybridge initially devised this process to clarify the movement of horses; through his experiments, he demonstrated that all four hooves leave the ground mid-gallop, thereby settling an intense debate of the era. This print of a cockatoo in flight was originally published in Animal Locomotion , a portfolio of 781 separate series that Muybridge, working under the auspices of the University of Pennsylvania, created to stand at the intersection of art and science.

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