Skeleton of horse, running. By Eadweard Muybridge. San Francisco c.1881.
Eadweard Muybridge decomposition of movements
Two men wrestling from Eadweard Muybridge’s "Animal Locomotion" series of stopped-action motion studies completed in 1887. Muybridge’s captured motion with a series of trip-shutter, high-speed cameras.
His first motion capture series of a horse running started with a bet. Leland Stanford, a railroad magnate and governer of California hired Muybridge to prove that when a horse gallops, all four of its feet leave the ground simultaneously.
Muybridge was also a hot-tempered man who shot and killed his wife’s lover...however, he was acquitted thanks to his friendly relationship with the governer of California, none other than horse-gallop-betting Leland Stanford.
Stay where you are, poor beast. This is no world for you.
See the extended version with music here: https://vimeo.com/253186626
Eadweard Muybridge, 1887
An ostrich walking. Animated cartoons : how they are made : their origin and development. 1920. Eadweard Muybridge, photographer.
If you know film and/or photography, you probably know the name Muybridge, the man who effectively invented cinema by taking photos in rapid succession of a horse galloping in order to settle a bet. And then went on to film endless movement sequences, mostly walk cycles, of various animals and human subjects (to the enternal gratitude of animators everywhere).
Apparently this is what happened when he got to cats.
Studies of clouds. Eadweard Muybridge. 1869. Found in Eadweard Muybridge; the Stanford years. 1953.
Buffalo Galloping - Eadweard Muybridge, 1887
Athlete jumping. Eadweard Muybridge, the Stanford years. 1953. Back cover.
“(Eadweard) Muybridge shaking hands with one of his models.” A pictorial history of the movies. 1943.