Muybridge, The Attitudes of Animals in Motion
Getty Conversations


Have you ever wondered what it took to take a photograph in the 1800s?

 

A conversation with Dr. Mazie M. Harris, Assistant Curator, Department of Photographs, Getty Museum and Dr. Steven Zucker, Executive Director, Smarthistory, at Getty Center in front of The Attitudes of Animals in Motion, photographed, 1878–79; printed 1881, Eadweard J. Muybridge. Iron salt process, 19.5 x 24.7 x 3.1 cm. Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

 

Eadweard J. Muybridge’s The Attitudes of Animals in Motion is a great example of how photography changed our understanding of the world, with the ability to capture what the naked eye cannot see.

Getty has joined forces with Smarthistory to bring you an in-depth look at select works within our collection, whether you’re looking to learn more at home or want to make art more accessible in your classroom. This six-part video series illuminates art history concepts through fun, unscripted conversations between art historians, curators, archaeologists, and artists, committed to a fresh take on the history of visual arts.


Additional resources

View this work on the Getty Museum’s website

The Bet That Gave Us One of the Most Famous Photos Of All Time (Getty interactive at Google Arts and Culture)

Early photography: Niépce, Talbot and Muybridge on Smarthistory

Irma B. Jaffe and Gernando Colombardo, “The Flying Gallop: East and West,” The Art Bulletin, vol. 65, no. 2 (June 1983), pp.183–200.

Eadweard Muybridge, Animals in Motion (London: Chapman and Hall, 1899).; Eadweard Muybridge, Animal Locomotion: The Muybridge Work at the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1888).

Phillip Prodger, Time Stands Still: Muybridge and the Instantaneous Photography Movement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). 

 

Cite this page as: Dr. Mazie Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, "Muybridge, The Attitudes of Animals in Motion
Getty Conversations," in Smarthistory, March 28, 2022, accessed March 19, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/muybridge-the-attitudes-of-animals-in-motion-getty-conversations/.