Plate Number 186. Hopping on right foot
Medium
collotype
Dimensions
image: 20 × 35.95 cm (7 7/8 × 14 1/8 in.) sheet: 48.3 × 61.1 cm (19 × 24 1/16 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase, 1887)
Accession Number
2015.19.4108
Rights
Public Domain
Art Historical Context
Eadweard Muybridge created *Plate Number 186. Hopping on right foot* as part of his groundbreaking 1887 publication *Animal Locomotion*. A pioneering photographer and inventor, Muybridge used banks of cameras with timed shutters to capture human and animal movement in sequential frames. This particular plate freezes a man mid-hop, revealing the subtle shifts in balance and posture that the naked eye cannot perceive. Printed as a collotype—a high-quality photographic process favored for its rich tonal detail—the image belongs to a scientific yet artistic project that bridged art and science. C...
About the Artist
Eadweard Muybridge · 1830–1904
Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904) was an English-American photographer who revolutionized the understanding of motion through his pioneering chronophotographic studies. Born Edward James Muggeridge in Kingston upon Thames, England, he emigrated to America and became famous first for his dramatic landscape photographs of Yosemite Valley, then for his groundbreaking motion studies that proved horses li...