It’s not often you get to use the word zoopraxiscope in an article, but Google has given me the perfect opportunity to do so today because of its Google Doodle choice.
The doodle depicts a running horse, and it probably looks quite familiar to all but the youngest of our readers. It was created by British photographer Eadweard Muybridge, who would have been celebrating his 182nd birthday today.
The zoopraxiscope was thought up to help answer the question of whether all four of a horse’s legs leave the ground during galloping. In 1879 there was a question mark over whether they did or not, with artists typically choosing to show all four legs off the ground and extended.
Muybridge proved they all left the ground, but not extended, by using 24 cameras triggered by a thread as the horse passed. This produced a series of images on glass of the horse galloping at different points in time. When spun on a zoopraxiscope (not to be confused with a zoetrope) you see the full motion and the four legs off the ground, but tucked under the horse. The piece of animated work is known as “The Horse in Motion.”
Muybridge’s proof through animation preceded film and influenced Thomas Edison and William Kennedy in the creation of the motion picture device called the Kinetoscope.
As well as motion pictures, Muybridge was renowned and remembered for his landscape photography, but also for killing his wife’s lover. Fortunately for him, he was acquitted due to justifiable homicide.
Muybridge’s work remains a reference for artists and appears in many reference books, yet most people will remember and associate him mainly with the animated horse.
The doodle depicts a running horse, and it probably looks quite familiar to all but the youngest of our readers. It was created by British photographer Eadweard Muybridge, who would have been celebrating his 182nd birthday today.
The zoopraxiscope was thought up to help answer the question of whether all four of a horse’s legs leave the ground during galloping. In 1879 there was a question mark over whether they did or not, with artists typically choosing to show all four legs off the ground and extended.
Muybridge proved they all left the ground, but not extended, by using 24 cameras triggered by a thread as the horse passed. This produced a series of images on glass of the horse galloping at different points in time. When spun on a zoopraxiscope (not to be confused with a zoetrope) you see the full motion and the four legs off the ground, but tucked under the horse. The piece of animated work is known as “The Horse in Motion.”
Muybridge’s proof through animation preceded film and influenced Thomas Edison and William Kennedy in the creation of the motion picture device called the Kinetoscope.
As well as motion pictures, Muybridge was renowned and remembered for his landscape photography, but also for killing his wife’s lover. Fortunately for him, he was acquitted due to justifiable homicide.
Muybridge’s work remains a reference for artists and appears in many reference books, yet most people will remember and associate him mainly with the animated horse.
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