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In 1872, former California governor, Leland Stanford, sought the services of a bookseller turned photographer named Eadweard Muybridge to photograph a horse for him. Mr. Muybridge was becoming well-known for his West Coast landscape photography, but was intrigued with the idea of the commission. The purpose of the photograph would be to see if at any point in a horse’s stride all four feet left the ground. The undertaking would certainly require a lot of skill, innovation and patience. This may hardly seem like a groundbreaking venture to us, but during the early years of photography it seemed an unrealistic and possibly unattainable goal.
Mr. Stanford owned the fastest trotting horse of his day, Occident, and wanted the photograph to show the horse’s gait at racing speed. He felt that the art of the time was incorrectly portraying the horse in action, and wanted to prove it. There were some rumors that a bet was involved, but no real evidence of this has been found. Muybridge wasn’t sure it could be done, but was swayed by the determined Stanford. Leland Stanford was also president and builder of the Central Pacific Railroad... a railroad that was once thought impossible to complete because of the difficulties of terrain.
The early efforts of the photographer were mixed and the photographs not crystal clear, but he did succeed in proving Leland Stanford’s hunch about the mechanics of a horse’s motion. Occident was trained to race over white sheets to provide contrast for these first attempts, and Mr. Muybridge was said to have captured his likeness by using an arrangement of double lenses and a spring release setup for the shutter of his camera. Announcements of the success appeared in a California newspaper in 1873.
In 1879, Eadweard Muybridge used his photographic motion studies as a basis for an invention he called a zoopraxiscope or “animal action viewing device.” His invention was precipitated by some skepticism about the validity of his motion photographs. The projector-like device used circular discs with images redrawn from the photographs to show a repeating moving image, the technology to project actual photographs was not yet available. The idea may have come from various suggestions Muybridge received to create zoetrope images from his photographs. Both the zoetrope and the zoopraxiscope worked on the principle of persistence of vision, but the zoopraxiscope actually projected these moving images and thus could be viewed by groups of people . By 1880, Muybridge was giving presentations with this device to rapt audiences. Here is a video clip of Occident trotting, that I put together from the Palo Alto photos, which approximates zoopraxicope imagery.
In the early 1880’s, Leland Stanford asked an old friend, J.D.B. Stillman, to work on a book about the Palo Alto project. Stillman was a medical doctor and writer and was not familiar with the subject. He set Stanford’s carpenters to task on the assembly of a horse’s skeleton so that it could be posed, and began to familiarize himself with the work. The book which resulted from these efforts, “The Horse in Motion” was copyrighted in 1881 and published in 1882. Artwork drawn from the photographic series was used to illustrate the book, supposedly because of printing limitations. This publication caused a rift between project patron Leland Stanford and photographer Muybridge, who thought Stanford was not giving him proper credit for the studies. Muybridge sued Stanford for damaging his reputation, but lost the case.
Eadweard Muybridge went on to photograph a landmark series of animal and human motion studies sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He made about 30,000 photographs from 1884 to 1886. In 1894 he returned to his native England where he died in 1904.
Former California governor and railroad magnate Leland Stanford became a U.S. Senator in 1885, and served until his death in 1893. Stanford, ever the avid horseman, was proud of the achievements of his great racehorses... Occident, Electioneer, champion filly Sunol and others. He paid his farm workers well, and wouldn’t tolerate any roughness or abuse of his horses. Leland and his wife Jane founded Leland Stanford Junior University as a memorial to their teenage son who died of typhoid.
The groundbreaking photographs these two men brought to light changed the world. The motion studies were embraced by artists, photographers, veterinarians and scientists. Almost overnight artists changed the way they portrayed the horse. The awkward floating horses with splayed limbs quickly disappeared, replaced by accurate depictions of equine locomotion. In addition, Eaedward Muybridge’s zoopraxiscope became a forerunner and inspiration in the development of motion pictures. (Zoopraxiscope photograph courtesy of Kingston Museum & Heritage Service.)
Compare artwork of today with these antiquated pictures of horses trotting & galloping from the book "Horses in Motion." This art was used in the book to show the incorrect style of locomotion portrayed in the art of the day.
I thoroughly enjoyed researching this subject. If you would like more detailed information about this fascinating story, the following books are highly recommended:
“Time Stands Still - Muybridge and the Instantaneous Photography Movement” by Phillip Prodger; Oxford University Press, 2003.
“River of Shadows - Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West” by Rebecca Solnit; Viking Press, 2003.
“The Horse in Motion” by J.D.B. Stillman, published by Leland Stanford, 1882.
“Animals in Motion” by Eadweard Muybridge; Dover Publications, 1957.
“The Human Figure in Motion” by Eadweard Muybridge; Dover Publications, 1955.
“Muybridge’s Complete Human and Animal Locomotion” Volumes I, II and III; Dover Publications, 1979.
A very special thank you to author Gretchen Haskin! Gretchen had written a fine magazine article entitled "Leland Stanford Had a Farm" from which I gleaned a lot of insight into Leland Stanford's life and horses at his Palo Alto estate. Unfortunately, I only had tearsheets from a magazine and didn't know the source of the article. Gretchen kindly took the time to look up this information, and here it is: "Leland Stanford Had a Farm" from Horse of Course magazine. Oct. 1980, Vol 9 No 10, pages 44-46.
Let me also extend a thank you to the Kingston Museum & Heritage Service for permitting the use of their zoopraxiscope photograph in this article. Please visit their website for more information about Eadweard Muybridge and to see some of the rare items in their wonderful collection "The Eadweard Muybridge Bequest."
© Kim Jo Hess - Hobby Horses
