Eadweard Muybridge
For the Memorial Day Holiday, I was able to tour the Sacramento Music Festival - it takes place in Old Sacramento. Along with all the fabulous music, we also had the opportunity to briefly visit the California State Railroad Museum. They were showing a special exhibition of California fruit crate art & had also reserved a section in their museum store for photographer Eadweard Muybridge and Leland Stanford.
Being an artist I am very familiar with Muybridge, and use his photographic work to study motion, animals, and the human figure! At the museum, after reading more about the history and his connection to Stanford, I was inspired to design a Muybridge living room!
The artifacts and artwork are inspired by the history:
It was 1872, and contrary to popular belief the Governor of California, Leland Stanford, had a theory that horses have all feet off the ground at one particular moment in their stride! Stanford was a businessman and racehorse owner and hired Muybridge to photograph race horses in stride to validate his belief. Sure enough, that same year Muybridge shot a series of negatives that proved Stanford's theory to be correct! Through their monumental discovery they changed the way spectators thought and how future artists would depict a horse's gait.
Muybridge's discovery and his invention of the zoopraxiscope (a way to view the images) was also a stepping stone for cinematography!
-Mary
LINKS
2. Praxinoscope
