Plate Number 371. Acrobat, vertical "press up"

Art Historical Context

Behold *Plate Number 371. Acrobat, verticalpress up"* (1887), a captivating collotype print by pioneering photographer Eadweard Muybridge. sequential image captures an acrobat mid-motion, executing a dynamic vertical press-up, frozen in a series of precise poses across its panoramic 17.5 × 41.8 cm image area. Part of Muybridge's monumental *Animal Locomotion*, it showcases human athleticism with scientific rigor, transforming the body into a study of grace and power. Muybridge, a British-American innovator, revolutionized photography in the late 19th century by using banks of cameras triggered in rapid succession—up to 24 per second—to dissect movement invisible to the naked eye. Commissioned originally by the University of Pennsylvania and published in 1887, these plates bridged art and science, influencing early filmmakers like the Lumière brothers and modern stop-motion techniques. Acquired by the Corcoran Gallery that same year, this work now graces the National Gallery of Art's collection. The collotype medium, prized for its fine detail and tonal range, allowed mass reproduction of these high-fidelity studies, making Muybridge's insights accessible to scholars, artists, and the public. A testament to Victorian curiosity about the body's mechanics, it invites us to marvel at the artistry hidden in motion's fleeting moments.

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...