THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE
Until instantaneous photography was introduced, a little more than
twenty-five years ago (by the discovery of the means of increasing the
sensitiveness of a photographic plate), and gradually became familiar
to everyone in the exhibitions known as the "biograph" or
"cinematograph," the actual position of the legs in a galloping horse
at any given fraction of a second was unknown. Anyone who has tried to
"see" their position will agree that it cannot be done. Attempts had
been made to make out what the movements and positions of the legs
"must" be, by studying the hoof-marks in a soft track laid for the
purpose. But the result was not satisfactory.
As everyone knows, the so-called "biograph" pictures are produced by
an enormous series of consecutive instantaneous photographs taken on a
continuous transparent flexible film or ribbon. The camera has a
mechanism attached to it by which the sensitive film is jerked along
so as to expose a length of two inches (the size of the picture given
by the camera) for, say, one-thirtieth of a second without movement.
The film is then jerked on and a second bit of two inches is brought
into place for a thirtieth of a second and so on until a ribbon of
some thousand pictures is obtained. The interval between each picture
is usually also about one-thirtieth of a second, so that at least
fifteen pictures are taken in every second of time, and according to
the requirements of illumination and the rapidity of the movements of
the men or animals photographed this number may be greatly increased.
The film is developed, printed and fixed on a similar rolling
mechanism and the pictures are thrown one by one by a powerful
lantern on to a screen, and are jerked along at the same rate as that
at which they were taken, and are magnified enormously. Animals and
men in rapid movement, railway trains, the waves of the sea are thus
photographed, and when the serial pictures are thrown successively on
the screen the result is that the eye detects no interval between the
successive pictures--the figures appear as continuous moving objects.
This is due to the fact that whilst the impression produced on the
retina of the eye by each picture lasts for a tenth of a second (less
with brighter light), the interval between the successive pictures is
only one-thirtieth of a second, and accordingly the retinal impression
has not gone or ceased before the next is there; hence there is no
break in the series of retinal impressions, but continuity.[1]
[Illustration: Plate I.--Figs. 1 to 11, drawings from Muybridge's
photographs of consecutive poses of the galloping horse, each
photograph taken by an exposure of one fortieth of a second and
separated from the next by an interval of one fortieth of a second.
The horse in Fig. 10 has returned to the same pose as that with which
the series starts in Fig. 1. Fig. 11 gives a pose one hundredth of a
second earlier in the series than that taken in Fig. 2. Fig. 12 shows
a combination of the hinder half of Fig. 9 with the front half of Fig.
6, giving thus the maximum extension of both fore and hind legs.]
It is this duration of the impression on the retina which prevents us
from separating or "seeing distinctly" the successive phases of a
horse's legs as he gallops by, and has led to the remarkable result
that no artist has ever until twenty-five years ago represented
correctly any one phase of the movement of the legs in a galloping
horse, and it is doubtful whether that correctness is what the painter
of a picture really ought to put on his canvas. If we examine the
separate pictures of a galloping horse as taken on a cinematograph
film, we have before us the actual record of the positions assumed by
the legs at intervals of the thirtieth of a second (or whatever less
interval and length of exposure may have been chosen), and it is
simply astonishing to find how utterly different they are from what
had been supposed. Twenty years ago Mr. Muybridge produced a number
of these instantaneous photographs of moving animals--such as the
horse in gallop, trot, canter, amble, walk, and jumping and
bucking--also the dog running, birds of several kinds flying, camel,
elephant, deer, and other animals in rapid movement. The animals were
photographed on a track in front of a wall, marked out to show
measured yards; the time was accurately recorded to show rate
of movement and length of exposure, and of interval between
successive pictures. By means of three cameras worked by electric
shutter-openers, a side, a back, and a front view of the animal were
taken simultaneously. Repeated photographs were obtained at intervals
of a fraction of a second, giving a series of fifteen or twenty
pictures of the moving animal. The length of exposure for each picture
was one-fortieth of a second or less, and the interval between
successive pictures was about the same. Muybridge's great difficulty
had been to invent a shutter which would act rapidly enough. I have
some of these pictures before me now (see Pl. I). They show that what
has been drawn by artists and called the "flying gallop," in which the
legs are fully extended and all the feet are off the ground, with the
hind hoofs turned upwards, never occurs at all in the galloping horse,
nor anything in the least like it. There is a fraction of a second
when all four legs of the galloping horse are off the ground, but they
are not then extended, but, on the contrary, are drawn, the hind ones
forward and the front ones backward, under the horses' belly (see Pl.
I, figs. 2 and 3). A model showing this actual instantaneous attitude
of the galloping horse has recently been placed in the Natural History
Museum. When the hoofs touch the ground again after this instantaneous
lifting and bending of the legs under the horse, the first to touch it
is that of one of the hind legs (Pl. I, fig. 4), which is pushed very
far forward, forming an acute angle with the body. The shock of the
horse's impact on the ground is thus received by the hind leg, which
reaches obliquely forward beneath the body like an elastic <- spring.
Since the instantaneous photographs have become generally known
artists have ceased to represent the galloping horse in the curious
stretched pose which used to be familiar to everyone in Herring's
racing plates (see Pl. II, fig. 1), with both fore and hind legs
nearly horizontal, and the flat surface of the hind hoofs actually
turned upwards! Indeed, as early as 1886 a French painter, M. Aime
Morot, availed himself of the information afforded by the then quite
novel instantaneous photographs of the galloping horse, and exhibited
a picture of the cavalry fight at Rezonville between the French and
Germans, in which the old flying gallop does not appear, but the
attitudes of the horses are those revealed by the new photographs. The
picture is an epoch-making one, whether justifiable or not, and is now
in the gallery of the Luxembourg. It must be noted that though
Meissonier and others had succeeded in representing more truthfully
than had been customary, other movements of the horse, such as
"pacing," ambling, cantering, and trotting, yet in regard to them,
also, more easily observed because less rapid, the instantaneous
photograph served to correct erroneous conclusions.
[Illustration: Plate II.--Various representations of the gallop. Fig.
1.--From Gericault's picture, "The Epsom Derby, 1821." Figs. 2 and
3.--From gold-work on the handle of a Mycenaean dagger, 1800 B.C. Fig.
4.--From iron-work found at Koban, east of the Black Sea, dating from
500 B.C. Fig. 5.--From Muybridge's instantaneous photograph of a
fox-terrier, showing the probable origin of the pose of the "flying
gallop" transferred from the dog to other animals by the Mycenaeans.
Fig. 6.--The stretched-leg prance from the Bayeux tapestry (eleventh
century). Fig. 7.--The stretched-leg prance used to represent the
gallop by Carle Vernet in 1760. Fig. 8.--The stretched-leg prance used
by early Egyptian artists.
Fig. 1. Flying Gallop. (Gericault)
Fig. 2. Flying Gallop. (Mycenaean)
Fig. 3. Galloping Griffon.
Fig. 4. Flying Gallop. (Koben)
Fig. 5. Galloping Dog. (Photograph)
Fig. 6. Bayeux.
Fig. 7. Carle Vernet.
Fig. 8. Egyptian.]
[Illustration: Plate III.--Representations of the gallop. Fig. 1.--A
combination of the hinder half of Fig. 10, Pl. I, with the front half
of Fig. 4, Pl. I. Fig. 2.--One of the many admirable Chinese
representations of the galloping horse. This is very early, namely,
100 A.D. The pose is that of the "flying gallop" as in Figs. 2, 4 and
5 of Pl. II. Fig. 3.--From a Japanese drawing of the seventeenth
century; the pose is a modification of the "flying gallop," and agrees
closely with that of Fig. 1 in this plate. Fig. 4.--The flex-legged
prance from a bas-relief in the frieze of the Parthenon, B.C. 300.
Fig. 5.--A modern French drawing giving a pose very similar to that of
Figs. 1 and 3. It is the most "effective" pose yet adopted by artists,
and is an improvement on the full-stretched flying gallop, though
failing to suggest the greatest effort and rapidity. Fig.
6.--Instantaneous photographs of four phases of a horse "jumping."
Fig. 1.
Fig. 2. Early Chinese.
Fig. 3. Japanese, 17th Century.
Fig. 4. Parthenon.
Fig. 5. Conventional Gallop
Fig. 6.]
Two very interesting questions arise in connection with the discovery
by instantaneous photography of the actual positions successively
taken up by the legs of a galloping horse. The first is one of
historical and psychological importance, viz. why and when did artists
adopt the false but generally accepted attitude of the "flying
gallop"? The second is psychological and also physiological, viz. if
we admit that the true instantaneous phases of the horse's gallop (or
of any other very rapid movement of anything) cannot be seen
separately by the human eye, but can only be separated by
instantaneous photography, ought an artist to introduce into a
picture, which is not intended to serve merely as a scientific
diagram, an appearance which has no actual existence so far as his or
other human eyes are concerned, viz. that of the actual pose assumed
instantaneously and simultaneously by the four legs of the galloping
horse? And further, if he ought not to do this, what ought he to do,
on the supposition that his purpose is to convey to others the same
impression of rapid movement which exists--not, be it observed, in his
eye, or on the retina of that eye--but in his mind, as the result of
attention and judgment?
The first of these questions has been answered by the great French
authority on archaeology and the history of art, M. Salomon Reinach,[2]
whose writings are as lucid and terse as they are accurate, and
solidly based on research. M. Reinach shows (and produces drawings to
support his statement) that in Assyrian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman,
mediaeval, and modern art up to the end of the eighteenth century "the
flying gallop" does not appear at all! The first example (so far as
those schools are concerned) is an engraving by G. T. Stubbs in 1794
of a horse called "Baronet." The essential points about "the flying
gallop" are that the fore-limbs are fully stretched forward, the hind
limbs fully stretched backward, and that the flat surfaces of the
hinder hoofs are facing upwards. After this engraving of 1794 the
attitude introduced by Stubbs became generally adopted in English art
to represent a galloping horse, and the French painter, Gericault,
introduced it into France in 1821 in his celebrated picture, the
"Derby d'Epsom," (see Pl. II, fig. 1) which is now in the Louvre.
Previously to this there had been three other conventional poses for
the running horse in art, of which only the third (to be mentioned
below) has any resemblance to a real pose, and that not one of rapid
movement. We find: (1) The elongated or stretched-leg "prance"
(French, "_cabre allonge_"), in which, whilst the front legs are off
the ground, and all four legs are stretched nearly as much as in the
flying gallop, there is this essential difference, viz. that the hoofs
of the hind legs are firmly planted on the ground (see Pl. II, fig.
7). This pose is seen in a picture by the same artist (Stubbs) of two
years' earlier date than that in which he introduced "the flying
gallop." The "stretched-leg prance" is found in Egyptian works (Pl.
II, fig. 8) of 580 B.C., and is a favourite pose to indicate the
gallop, in ancient Assyrian as well as mediaeval art, for instance, in
the Bayeux tapestry (Pl. II, fig. 6). We find, further, (2) that the
second pose made use of for this purpose is the "flexed-leg prance,"
in which all the four legs are flexed, so that the hind legs rest on
the ground beneath the horse's body, whilst the forelegs "paw" the
air. This is seen both in Egyptian, Greek, and Renaissance art
(Leonardo, Raphael, and Velasquez). It is by no means so graceful or
true to Nature as the next pose, but gives an impression of greater
energy and rapidity. The third pose represents a kind of "prancing,"
and is seen on the frieze of the Parthenon (Pl. III, fig. 4), and in
many subsequent Greek, Roman, and other works copied from or inspired
by, this Greek original. One only of the hind legs is on the ground,
and the animal's body is thrown up as though its advance were checked
by the rein. It is called "the canter" by M. Reinach, but that term
can only be applied to it when the axis of the body is horizontal and
parallel to the surface of the ground.
The reader will perhaps now suppose that we must attribute the "flying
gallop" to the original, if inaccurate genius of an eighteenth century
English horse-painter. That, however, is not the case. M. Reinach has
shown that it has a much more extraordinary history. It is neither
more nor less than the fact that in the pre-Homeric art of
Greece--that which is called "Mycenaean" (of which so much was made
known by the discoveries of that wonderful man Schliemann when he dug
up the citadel of Agamemnon)--the figures of animals, horses, deer,
bulls (see the beautiful gold cups of Vaphio), dogs, lions, and
griffins, in the exact conventional pose of "the flying gallop," are
quite abundant! (See Pl. II, figs. 2, 3 and 4.) There was an absolute
break in the tradition of art between the early gold-workers of Mykene
(1800 to 1000 B.C.) and the Greeks of Homer's time (800 B.C.). Europe
never received it, nor did the Assyrians nor the Egyptians. Thirty
centuries and more separate the reappearance in Europe of the flying
gallop--through Stubbs--from the only other European examples of
it--the Mycenaean. What, then, had become of it, and how did it come to
England? M. Reinach shows, by actual specimens of art-work, that the
Mycenaean art tradition, and with it the "flying gallop," passed slowly
through Asia Minor north eastwards to the Trans-caucasus (Koban, 500
B.C.), to Northern Persia, and thence by Southern Siberia to the
Chinese Empire (Pl. III, fig. 2) as early as 150 B.C., and that the
"flying gallop," so to speak, "flourished" there for centuries, and
was transmitted by the Chinese artists to the Japanese, in whose
drawings it is frequent (Pl. III, fig. 3). It was at last finally
brought back to Europe, and to the extreme west of it, namely,
England, by the importation in the eighteenth century into England of
large numbers of Japanese works of art. It was a Japanese drawing (M.
Reinach infers) which suggested to Stubbs the upturned hinder hoofs
and the detachment from the ground of "the flying gallop" which he
gave in his portrait of "Baronet," and so established that pose for a
century in modern European art. This is a delightful tracing out of
the wanderings of an artistic "convention," and the curious thing is
that its chief importance is not that it has to do with the movements
of the horse, but that it tends (as do other discoveries) to establish
the gradual passage of pre-classical Mycenaean art across Central Asia
to China and Japan by trade routes and human migrations which had no
touch with later Greece nor with Assyria nor India.
How did the Mycenaeans come to invent, or at any rate adopt, the
convention of "the flying gallop," seeing that it does not truly
represent either the fact or the appearance of a galloping horse?
Though 20,000 years ago the earliest of all known artists, the
wonderful cave-men of the Reindeer period, drew bison, boars, and deer
in rapid running movement with consummate skill, they were (be it said
to their credit!) innocent of the conventional pose of the "flying
gallop." I base this statement on my own knowledge of their work. M.
Reinach thinks that the "flying gallop" was devised as an intentional
expression of energy in movement. I venture to hold the opinion that
it was observed by the Mycenaeans in the dog, in which Muybridge's
photographs (now before me) demonstrate that it occurs regularly as an
attitude of that animal's quickest pace or gallop (see fig. 5, Pl.
II). It is easy to see the "flying gallop" in the case of the dog,
since the dog does not travel so fast as the galloping horse, and can
be more readily brought under accurate vision on account of its
smaller size. The late Professor Marey (a great investigator of animal
movement) appears to have denied that the dog exhibits the full
stretch of both limbs with the pads of the hind-feet upturned, and all
the feet free from the ground. He was mistaken, as Muybridge's
photograph giving side and back view of a galloping fox-terrier amply
demonstrates. It is quite in accordance with probability that the
early Mycenaean artists, having seen how the dog gallops, erroneously
proceeded to put the galloping horse, and all other animals which
they wished "to make gallop," into the same position.
It appears, then, that the poses used by artists at different times
and in different parts of the world to represent the "galloping" of
the horse have no correspondence to any of the poses actually assumed
by a galloping horse as now demonstrated by instantaneous photography.
The "prancing" attitude of the horses of the frieze of the Parthenon
was probably not intended to represent rapid movement at all. The
"stretched-leg" pose and the "flex-leg" pose are, as a matter of fact,
phases of "the jump," and are definitely recorded in Muybridge's
instantaneous photographs of the jumping horse, but have no existence
in "galloping" nor in any rapid running of the horse. They were
probably adopted by the artists of Egypt, Assyria, Greece, and their
successors in Europe as an expedient without conviction, to represent
rapid movement, the true poses of which defied satisfactory
reproduction. And it is also the fact that the "flying gallop," which
appeared in Mycenaean art thirty-seven centuries ago, and then
travelled by a "Scythian" route through Tartary to China, and came
back to Europe at the end of the eighteenth century, is also--so far
as it has any real representative in the action of the horse--only
approached by a brief phase of the "jump." The poses of the horse in
jumping are shown in the small figures taken from instantaneous
photographs and reproduced in Fig. 6 of Pl. III. The "flying gallop"
("_ventre a terre_"), with all four legs stretched, and the under
surface of the hind feet upturned, is really seen by us all every day
in the dog, and is recorded in instantaneous photographs of that
animal going at full speed. In fact, the gallop of the dog (and of
some other small animals) is a series of jumps; the animal "bounds
along." But this is a totally different thing from the gallop of the
horse. It is probable that the dog's gallop was transferred, so to
speak, to the horse by artists, and a certain justification for it was
found in one of the attitudes of a jumping horse, which, however,
never exhibits both the front and the hind legs simultaneously in so
completely horizontal a position as they are made to take in the
Mycenaean gold-work and the modern "racing plates."
How, then, we may now ask, ought an artist to represent a galloping
horse? Some critics say that he ought not to represent anything in
such rapid action at all. But, putting that opinion aside, it is an
interesting question as to what a painter should depict on his canvas
in order to convey to others who look at it the state of mind, of
impression, feeling, emotion, judgment, which a live, galloping horse
produces in him. The scientific draughtsman would, of course, present
to us a series of drawings exactly like the instantaneous photographs,
his object being to show what "is," and not what the artist aims at,
namely, what "appears," "seems," or (without pondering and analysis)
"is thought to be." The painter, in his quality of artist, would be
wrong to select any one of the dozen or more poses of the galloping
horse published by Muybridge, each limited to the fortieth of a
second, since no human eye can fix (as the photographic camera can)
separate pictures following one another at the rate of twenty a
second, each enduring one fortieth of a second, and each separated by
an interval of a fortieth of a second from the next. All the phases
which occur in any one-tenth of a second (only two, or possibly three
of the Muybridge series shown in Pl. I) are, as it were, fused in our
visual impression, because each picture lasts on the retina of the eye
for one-tenth of a second, or (to put it more accurately) because the
"impression" or condition of the retina produced by each picture
persists or endures for the tenth of a second.
It may, perhaps, be suggested (and, indeed, has been), that it is the
"blurred" or "fused" picture produced by the successive poses of the
galloping horse's legs in one-tenth of a second that the painter ought
to imitate on his canvas. In support of this notion we have the fact
that the rapidly running wheels of a coach or of a gun-carriage (as in
the pictures by Wouwerman) are represented by artists, not with the
twelve or fourteen spokes which we know to be there--and would be
photographed as separate things in an exposure of the fortieth of a
second--but as a blurred haze of some fifty or more indistinct
"spokes." In this case it undoubtedly results that the observer of the
picture is satisfied and receives the mental impression or illusion of
a rapid rotation of the wheel. I have tried the experiment with
instantaneous photographs of the galloping horse, and I get three
results: first, no combination of successive phases occupying
one-tenth of a second gives anything resembling the "flying gallop" of
the racing plates (the Mycenaean and Stubbsian pose), or any other
conventional pose; second, no combination of successive instantaneous
photographs limited to ten second gives any pose which satisfies the
judgment and suggests a movement like the gallop; third, the
combination which comes nearest to satisfying the judgment as being a
natural appearance, but does not quite succeed in doing so, is one
formed by the fusion of figs. 2 and 3 of Pl. I. This gives all four
legs off the ground, drawn up or flexed beneath the horse's body, as
in Morot's picture of the sabre-charge at Resonville.
The fact is that we have to take into consideration two other factors
in the process, which we call "seeing," besides the duration of the
retinal impression or excitation. These are, first, attention, and
second, judgment. We are apt to think that "seeing" is a simple,
straightforward sort of thing, whereas it is really a strangely
complex and delusive process. "I did not see it, therefore it was not
there," or "You must have seen it; it was right in front of you," are
common assertions, and the belief that such assertions are justified
leads to miscarriage of justice in courts of law. Yet everyone knows
that he may stare out of the window of a railway carriage and have a
long panorama pass before his eyes, or may walk along a crowded street
and look his acquaintances in the face, and in neither case will he
have "seen" or recognized anything, or be able to give an account of
the scene that was pictured on the back of his eye. Attention, the
direction of the mind to the sensation, is necessary; and it appears
that it is very difficult (to some more than to others) to hold the
attention alert, and to give it to the _unexpected_. In fact, to a
very large extent we can only "see" (using the word to signify the
ultimate mental condition) that which we are prepared to see or that
which we expect to see. In the absence of such expectation, a very
strongly illuminated or well-marked, outstanding object is far more
readily "seen" than less marked objects. Accordingly, the outstretched
legs of the galloping horse, now in front and now behind, are "seen,"
whilst the rest of the phases are not observed. Moreover, it is a fact
that the swinging pendulum of a clock is "seen" at the extreme
position of the swing on each side, and not in the intermediate space.
This is because the image is formed very quickly, twice in the space
where the bob of the pendulum is coming to the limit of its swing and
is again returning on its course. For the same reason, the
outstretched legs of the horse going up to their limit and at once
returning give in very quick succession, near their extreme limit, an
ascending and a descending phase which are not strictly but sensibly
alike, and so doubly impress the retina, and obtain for the legs
"attention" when in that extreme position. The choice of the attitude
depicted by Morot is explained by the fact that, as is shown by its
persistence through two successive pictures (figs. 2 and 3 of Pl. I),
this pose must produce a more continuous impression on the retina than
any other of the attitudes shown, since none of them endure through
two successive pictures.
The mental process of attention results in a certain duration or
memory of the mental condition which is a distinct thing from the
primary retinal impression, and leads to the ignoring or mental
obliteration of an instantaneous interval separating two phases of the
position of moving legs which have strongly "arrested the attention."
Hence, it seems that the most forward pose of the galloping horse's
front legs and the most backward pose of its hind legs--though far
from simultaneous, even in the slow changing retinal impressions--may
be mentally combined by "the arrest of attention," and that the artist
really ought to present his picture of the galloping horse with those
two poses combined (although as a matter of scientific truth they do
not occur simultaneously) in order that he may produce by his painted
piece of canvas, as nearly as he can, the mental result which we call
"seeing" a horse gallop. This combination of the front half of one
figure with the hinder half of another so as to give in each case the
extreme phase of extension of the legs I have made in Pl. I, fig. 12.
But there is, further, in all "seeing" before even a mental result of
_attention_ to the retinal picture is, as it were, "passed," admitted
and registered as "a thing seen," the further operation of rapid
criticism or _judgment_, brief though it be. We are always
unconsciously forming lightning-like judgments by the use of our eyes,
rejecting the improbable, and (as we consider) preposterous, and
accepting and therefore "seeing" what our judgment approves even when
it is not there! We accept as "a thing seen" a wheel buzzing round
with something like fifty spokes--but we cannot accept a horse with
eight or sixteen legs! The four-leggedness of a horse is too dominant
a prejudice for us to accept a horse with several indistinct blurred
legs as representing what we see when the horse gallops. The mind
revolts at such a presentation, though it is true, and the whole
scheme and composition of the artist is perverted or fails to gain
attention and to exercise its charm--by the unwelcome presence in his
picture of the revolting truth. It is the consideration of facts of
this kind which enables us to understand the origin and importance of
what are called "conventions" in pictorial or glyptic art. The artist
is, in fact, operating by means of his painted canvas or moulded clay
upon a queer, prejudiced, ill-seeing, dull, living creature--his
brother-man. In order to give if possible to that brother, by means of
a painted sheet, some or all of the delights, emotions, suggestions,
perceptions of beauty, and so on, which he himself has experienced in
contemplating a real scene, the artist has to present that scene, not
as it really is, nor even as he thinks it really is, but in such a way
that his canvas shall appeal to his brother's attention and judgment
with the same emotional and intellectual result as the scene itself
produced in him. Therefore he must not aim at accuracy of reproduction
of natural fact nor even of visual fact, but at the transference to
another mind of his own mental condition--his inner judgment as to
"things seen"--by means of necessarily imperfect pictorial mimicry. He
must therefore avoid startling or abnormal truthfulness of observation
of the unessential and even more strictly must he refuse to make his
picture a scientific diagram demonstrating what "is" rather than what
is "seen" or is "thought to have been seen."
On these grounds I find that the most satisfactory pictures of the
galloping horse are those which combine a phase of the movement of the
front legs with a phase of the movement of the hind legs, not
simultaneous in actual occurrence, but following one another. It is
for the artist to select the combination best suited to producing the
mental result aimed at. Some of the Chinese and Japanese
representations of the galloping horse and some of their European
imitations (but not all--certainly not that of Stubbs, of the Epsom
Derby of Gericault, and the racing plates) seem to me to be eminently
satisfactory and successful in this respect. In the pictures to which
I allude (Pl. III, figs. 3 and 5) all the legs are off the ground; the
front legs are advanced, but one or both may be more or less flexed,
whilst the hind legs, though directed backwards with upturned hoofs,
are not nearly horizontal (as they actually are in the galloping dog),
but show the moderate extension which really occurs in the horse, and
is recorded by instantaneous photography. This pose, favoured by many
European and Japanese artists, can be obtained by uniting the
outstretched hind legs of fig. 9 of the Muybridge series (Pl. I), with
the outstretched forelegs of fig. 6, as shown in Pl. I, fig. 12, or by
uniting the hind legs of fig. 10 with the forelegs of fig. 4 as shown
in Pl. III, fig. 1.
With regard to the representation of other "gaits" of the horse than
that of the rapid gallop--such as canter, trot, amble, rack, and
walk--I have no doubt that instantaneous photography can (and in
practice does) furnish the painter with perfectly correct and at the
same time useful and satisfactory poses of the horse's limbs. These,
though of longer duration than the poses of the gallop, can only be
correctly estimated by the eye with great difficulty, and only
sketched by artists of exceptional skill and patience. The movement of
the wings of birds in flight has been very successfully analysed by
instantaneous photography. Some of the poses revealed must familiarise
the public with what can be, and, in fact, has been, observed in the
case of large sea-birds, by the unassisted eye, and has been
represented in pictures by the more careful observers of nature among
modern painters. A large sea-bird sailing along with apparently
motionless wings has been photographed in the act of giving a single
stroke so rapid as to escape observation by the eye.
An interesting question in regard to the movements of the horse is
that as to how far any known "pace" is natural to that animal, and how
far it has been acquired by training and is, in a sense, artificial.
We know so little of the wild horse, and of the more abundant wild
asses and zebras, that it is difficult to say anything precise on this
question. There is only one region in which the true original wild
horse of the northern part of Asia and Europe still exists. That is
the Gobi Desert, in Central Asia. This horse is known as Prevalsky's
wild horse, in honour of the Russian traveller who discovered it. Live
specimens are now to be seen in the Zoological Gardens and elsewhere.
It closely resembles the drawings of horses made by the palaeolithic
Cromagnard cave-men. A century ago a wild horse, probably of the same
race as this, inhabited the Kirghiz Steppes, and was known as the
Tarpan: it is now extinct. The more southern Arabian horse is not
known in the wild state, whilst the wild horses of America are
descendants of domesticated European horses which have "run wild." I
do not know of any studies of the movements of the true wild horse,
nor of those of wild asses and zebras, carried out by the aid of
instantaneous photography. It would be interesting to know whether
untaught wild "equines" would fall naturally into the gaits known as
"the amble" and "the rack," or whether the walk, the trot, and the
gallop are their only natural gaits.
The amble, in which the fore and hind leg on the same side are
advanced simultaneously, is a natural gait of the elephant, the
fastest Muybridge could get from that great beast. He made a menagerie
elephant amble at the rate of a mile in seven minutes. The only other
animal known to habitually exhibit "the amble" is the giraffe. It is
often exhibited by the giraffes in the Zoological Gardens in London,
but has not, I believe, been recorded by a series of instantaneous
photographs. When going at full speed over the grass wilds of Central
Africa the giraffe exhibits a gait more like the galloping of deer and
antelopes, and carries the long neck horizontally. No complete study
of the "gaits" of large animals other than the horse has been made,
since menagerie specimens and menagerie conditions are not
satisfactory for the purpose, and, unfortunately, it has not been
possible as yet to take series of photographs of them in their wild
conditions.
The electric spark furnishes a most important means of taking
instantaneous photographs, but the operator must perform in the dark.
An electric spark can be obtained which lasts only the one
two-thousandth of a second, and by its use as the sole illuminating
agent we can get a photograph of a phase of movement lasting only that
excessively short space of time, or, if we please, a succession of
such phases by using a succession of sparks. Thus, a rifle bullet is
readily photographed while in flight with scarcely perceptible
distortion. A wheel revolving many hundred times a second can thus be
photographed, and appears to be stationary. Dr. Schillings has applied
this method to the photography of wild animals by night in the forests
of tropical Africa, and has published an interesting book giving his
photographic results. In order to take these pictures the track
followed by certain animals has to be detected, and then a thread is
stretched "breast-high" across the track, so that the animal coming
along it by night shall pull the thread. Immediately the thread is
pulled it sets an electric contact in action. There is a brief flash
of one two-thousandth of a second, and a picture is taken by a camera
previously fixed, out of harm's way, so as to focus the area where the
thread was stretched.
Dr. Schillings obtained some very remarkable photographs of "the night
life of the forest" in this way--lions and leopards advancing on their
prey were suddenly revealed, and the helpless antelope or other victim
was shown crouching in the dark, or making a desperate effort to
escape.
The electric-spark method was applied by a friend of mine to
demonstrate the movements by which a kitten falling backwards from a
table succeeds in turning itself so as to alight on its feet. During a
fall of less than 3 feet he obtained five successive spark-pictures of
the kitten, which, I beg it may be clearly understood, was a pet
kitten, and was neither frightened nor hurt by the proceedings.
Instantaneous photographs, whether obtained by the use of an electric
spark as a means of illumination, or by the less rapid method of a
spring shutter working in combination with a sensitive film, which is
jerked along so as to be exposed when the shutter is open and travel
when it is shut, has been applied to the analysis of other movements
than those I have mentioned, and has yet to be applied to many more,
such as the crawling of insects and millipedes, and the beautiful
rippling movement of the legs and body by which many marine worms
swim. It has been extensively used in the study of human locomotion,
and of the successive poses of the arms and legs in various athletic
exercises, and in such games as baseball and golf.
A first-rate fencer of my acquaintance had a five-minutes' film of
himself taken when fencing, giving 10,000 consecutive poses. He wished
to see exactly what movements he made, and to ascertain by this minute
examination any error or want of grace in his action, in order to
avoid it. An unexpected picture is obtained when a man or woman is
thus "biographed" whilst walking rapidly, and suddenly turns to the
right or left. A fraction of a second occurs when the toes of the two
feet are directed towards one another (that is to say, are "turned
in"), as one of the legs swings round in the break-off to right or
left. This instantaneous phase is very awkward and ugly in appearance.
It is never pictured by artists, although regularly occurring, and
seems to have been as little known before instantaneous photography
was introduced as were most of the phases of the horse's gallop. The
positions assumed when in the air by a high-jump athlete are almost
incredible as revealed by the camera. He appears to be sitting in a
most uncomfortable way on the rope over which he is projecting
himself.
A very fine attitude is fixed for the artist in one of Muybridge's
instantaneous series of the "bowler"--the cricket "bowler." The
up-lifted right arm, the curve outwards of the whole figure on the
right side, and the free hang of the right leg make a most effective
pose for a sculptor to reproduce. Among the most remarkable results
obtained in Muybridge's series are the stages of the growth or
development of strong "expression" in the face. The anxiety in the
face of the baseball batsman as he awaits the ball is painful; as he
hits at the ball his expression is one of savage ferocity, and in a
fraction of a second this gives place to a dawning smile, which as we
pass along two or three later "_instantanees_" develops into a broad
grin of satisfaction. Another genuine study of expression both of face
and gesture and movement is given in the series where a pailful of
cold water is unexpectedly poured over the back of a bather seated in
a sitz bath--astonishment, dismay, anger, eagerness to escape, and the
reaction to shock are all clearly shown. Darwin's studies on "the
expression of the emotions" would have been greatly assisted by such
analysis, and the subject might even now be developed by the use of
serial instantaneous records obtained by photography. It may be useful
to those interested in this subject to know that copies of
Muybridge's large series of instantaneous photographs[3] of animal and
human subjects in movement are preserved both in the library of the
Royal Academy of Arts in London and in the Radcliffe Library at
Oxford. I may also mention the extremely valuable series of
instantaneous photographs of living bacteria, blood-parasites and
infusoria produced by MM. Pathe, and the series of fishes and various
invertebrates (including the curious caterpillar-like Peripatus) taken
by Mr. Martin Duncan.
The representation of the moon in pictures of the ordinary size (some
three feet long by two in height) is a case in which the artist
habitually--one may almost say invariably--departs greatly from
scientific truth, and it is a question as to whether he is justified
in what he does. Take first the case of the low-lying moon near the
horizon as contrasted with the high moon. Everyone knows that the moon
(and the sun[4] also) appears to be much bigger when it is low than
when it is high. Everyone who has not looked into the matter closely
is prepared to maintain that the luminous disc in the sky--whether of
moon or of sun--not merely seems to, but actually does, occupy a
bigger space when it is low down near the horizon than when it is high
up, more nearly overhead. Of course, no one nowadays imagines that the
moon or the sun swells as it sinks or diminishes in volume as it
rises. Those who think about it at all, say that the greater length of
atmosphere through which one sees the low sun or moon, as compared
with the high, magnifies the disc as a lens might do. This, however,
is not the case. If we take a photograph of the moon when low and
another with the same instrument and the same focus when it is high,
we find that the celestial disc produces on the plate (as it does on
our eyes) a picture-disc of practically the same size in both
positions. In fact, the high moon or sun produces a picture-disc of a
little larger size than the low moon or sun. I have here reproduced
(Pl. IV) a photograph, published by M. Flammarion, in which the moon
has been allowed to print itself on a photographic plate exposed
during the time the moon was rising, and it is seen that the track of
the moon has not diminished in width as it rose higher and higher. No
one will readily believe this, yet it is a demonstrable fact.
Astronomers have made accurate measurements which show that there is
no diminution of the disc under these circumstances, but a slight
increase--since the moon is a very little nearer to us when overhead
than when we see it across the horizon.
[Illustration: Plate IV.--The track of the rising moon registered by
continuous exposure of a photographic plate. It is given here in order
to show that the diameter of the visible disc of the moon does not
diminish as it rises. The slight increase in the breadth of the track
registered by the moon's disc is probably due to a little distortion
caused by the side portion of the lens. After M. Flammarion. The
actual width of the moon's disc as printed here is a little over one
eighth of an inch, which, if we regard it as "a picture" and not
merely as a mechanical record, implies that the observer's eye is only
about 14-1/2 inches distant from the picture plane instead of the more
usual 18 inches, which corresponds to a diameter of the pictured
moon's disc of between 1/6th and 1/7th of an inch (.156 inch).]
If we put a piece of glass coated with a thin layer of water-colour
paint into a frame, and then make a peep-hole in a board which we fix
upright between us and the upright piece of framed glass, we can keep
the framed glass steady (let us suppose it to be part of the window of
a room), and then we can move the peep-hole board back from it into
the room to measured distances. At a distance of one and a half feet
from the framed glass, which is that at which an artist usually has
his eye from his canvas or paper, we can trace on the smeared or
tinted piece of glass the outlines of things seen through it exactly
as they fill up the area of the glass--men, houses, trees, the moon.
The moon's disc (and the same is true of the sun) is found always to
occupy a space on the glass which is 1/115th of the distance of the
eye from the framed glass plate. When the eye-to-frame distance is
eighteen inches, the diameter of the disc of the moon on the smeared
glass will occupy exactly 1/115th of eighteen inches, which is between
one-sixth and one-seventh of an inch. Similarly if the peep-hole is at
nine and a half feet or 114 inches from the framed glass (which stands
for us as the equivalent of an artist's picture) the moon will occupy
almost exactly one inch in diameter--the size of a halfpenny. With
such a simple apparatus of peep-hole and smeared glass in an upright
frame, it is easy to mark off the size covered by the moon (or sun),
whether low or high, on the smeared glass, and it is found never to
vary whether high or low--so long as the same "eye-to-frame" or
"peep-hole" distance is preserved. That seems to be an important fact
for painters of sun-sets and moon-rises. But what do they do? They
never give the right size (namely one-sixth of an inch) which
corresponds to an eye-to-frame distance of eighteen inches. They give
to a high moon, if they are very careful, a quarter of an inch for
diameter. This means that the observer is about two and a half feet,
or thirty inches from the picture--nearly twice what the artist's eye
really is as he paints. And then--if painting a moon-rise or
sunset--they suddenly pretend to go to a distance of nine and a half
feet from the picture and make the moon an inch across because it is
low down, or even give the moon two inches in diameter, which would
mean that they (and those who look at the picture when hung up for
view) are observing at nineteen feet distance from the front plane or
frame of the picture. They do not alter the other features in the
picture to suit this change of distance of the eye from the frame and
there is no warning given. Certainly there is no obvious and necessary
reason for treating a picture containing a high moon as though you
were three feet from the front plane of the scene presented, and a low
moon as though you were twenty feet from that plane! The confusion
which may result in the representation of other objects when these
changes of eye-to-frame distance are made is shown by the following
simple facts. According to the simple laws of perspective, if the eye
is at thirty inches from the picture-plane or frame (as declared by a
moon drawn of a little more than a quarter of an inch broad), a post
or a man six feet high drawn on the canvas as three inches high
absolutely and definitely means that that man or post is sixty feet
away from the observer inside the picture. The height of the
represented object is the same fraction of the real object as the
eye-to-frame distance is of the distance of the observer to the real
object. If by a two-inch moon the artist has thrown you back from the
front plane of the scene to a distance of nineteen feet, then the
six-foot post or man drawn as three inches high definitely asserts
that it or he is 456 feet distant within the picture. So, too, if the
church tower which cuts the moon is really sixty feet high and is
drawn of two inches vertical measure in the picture, it is an
assertion--when the moon is represented one quarter of an inch
broad--that the church tower is 290 yards, or a sixth of a mile
distant. If, on the other hand, other things remaining the same, the
moon is drawn two inches in diameter, the church tower is now asserted
to be eight times as far off, or about a mile and a third. Very
generally these facts are not considered by painters. They represent
the low moon (or sun) big because the erroneous mental impression is
common to all of us that it _is_ big--that is, bigger, much bigger,
than the high moon or sun, and they do not follow out the consequences
in perspective of the pictorial increase of the moon's apparent
diameter.
If we could ascertain why it is that the low moon produces a false
impression of being bigger--as a mere disc in the scene--than does the
high moon, we might be able to discover how an artist could produce,
as Nature does, an impression or belief in its greater size whilst
keeping it all the time to its proper size. The explanation of the
illusion as to the increased size of the sun's or moon's disc when
low, given by M. Flammarion and other astronomers, is that the low sun
or moon is unconsciously judged by us as an object at a greater
distance than the high moon or sun. This is due to the long vista of
arching clouds above and of stretching landscape or sea below when the
sun or moon is looked at as it appears on or near the horizon. The
illusion is aided by the dulness of the low moon and the brightness
(supposed nearness) of the high moon. Being judged of (unconsciously)
as further off than the high moon, the low moon is estimated as of
larger size although of the same size. This is, I believe, the correct
explanation of the illusion. When one gazes upwards to the sky, a
small insect slowly flying across the line of sight sometimes is
"judged of" as a huge bird--an eagle or a vulture--since we refer it
to a distance at which birds fly and not to the shorter distance to
which insects approach us. It seems that it would be possible for the
painter, by carefully studying actual natural facts and introducing
their presentation into his picture, to produce the impression of
greater distance, and therefore of size, into a quarter-inch moon
placed near the horizon. He is not compelled for want of other means
to "cut the difficulty" and paint a falsely inflated moon which shall
brutally and by measurement call up the illusion of increased size. I
reproduce here (Pl. V) an interesting drawing which shows how such
illusions of size _can_ be produced. It is none the worse for my
purpose because it is an advertisement by the well-known firm who
have kindly lent it to me. The three figures represented in black
are all of the same height, yet the furthest one appears to be much
taller and bigger altogether than the middle one, and the middle one
than the nearest. This result is obtained by suggesting distance as
separating the right-hand figure from us, whilst giving it exactly the
same height as the others. This seems to me to be a simple case of an
illusion of increased size produced by a suggestion of increased
distance when all the time there is equality in size--as in the case
of the moon on the horizon compared with the moon overhead. It would
be interesting to see an attempt on the part of a competent painter to
produce in this way (which is, I believe, Nature's way) the illusion
of increased size in a low-lying moon without really increasing the
visual size of his painted moon as compared with one in another
picture (to be painted by him) representing the moon bright, clear and
small, overhead.
[Illustration: Plate V.--Drawing of three figures--Lord Lansdowne, Mr.
Lloyd George, and Mr. Asquith--showing how an illusion of size may be
produced in a picture. The figure of Mr. Asquith is of the same actual
vertical measurement as that of Lord Lansdowne, viz. two inches and
one eighth. Yet owing to the position in which the three figures are
placed and the converging lines--suggesting perspective--the drawing
of Mr. Asquith does not merely represent a much taller man than does
that of Lord Lansdowne, but actually gives the impression, at first
sight, that the little black figure representing Mr. Asquith is longer
and bigger altogether than that representing Lord Lansdowne. Yet the
figures are of the same dimensions. It is owing to illusion of the
same nature that the disc of the low moon appears larger than that of
the high moon.]
The theatrical scene-painter has another kind of difficulty with the
low moon and the setting sun. He can never be right for more than one
row of seats--one distance--in the theatre. Here there is no
peep-hole, no frame or picture-plane. The observer is _in_ the
picture. If the moon is represented by an illuminated disc of one foot
in diameter, it will, when looked at at a distance of 115 feet, have
the same visual size as the moon itself, but if your seat is nearer
the scene it will look too large, if further off it will look too
small. There is no getting over this difficulty, as the standard of
actual Nature is set up on the stage by the men and women appearing on
it at a known distance. It used to be asked in classical times by
ingenious puzzle-makers--"What is the size of the moon?" A true answer
to that question would be "that of a plate a foot in diameter seen at
a distance of a hundred and fifteen feet."
To a large extent the painter, like other artists, has to produce
things which do not shock common opinion and experience, and must even
consciously concede to that necessity, and make the sacrifice of
objective truth, in order to secure attention for his higher appeal to
the sense of beauty, to emotion, and sentiment. Approved departures by
the artist from scientific truth are those which are deliberately made
in order to give emphasis--as, for instance, in the huge, but tender
hand of the man in the emotional masterpiece, "Le Baiser," by the
great sculptor Rodin. Another departure from objective truth which is
justified, is seen in Troyon's picture in the Louvre, where the false
drawing and exaggerated size of the leg of a calf advancing towards
the observer suggest, and almost give the illusion of, movement.
But it can hardly be maintained that any and all the liberties which a
painter or a whole school of painters choose to take with fact in
their presentation of Nature--are beyond criticism. It is possible for
a landscape painter to improve in his treatment of the moon by better
observation and increased knowledge--just as other painters have
learnt not to introduce into their pictures the sort of wooden
rocking-horse to stand for a beautiful living animal, which satisfied
Velasquez, Carl Vernet and the ancient Egyptians.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: See note on page 46.]
[Footnote 2: "La Representation du Galop dans l'art ancien et
moderne," 'Revue Archeologique,' vol. XXXVI _et seq._, 1900.]
[Footnote 3: A word is needed in amplification of what was said on p.
26 as to the blending of successive images produced on the retina of
the eye by the bioscope or cinematograph or by the old "wheel of
life." The point which is of importance is not the length of time
during which the stimulation of the retina caused by an image
_endures_--becoming weaker and weaker as fractions of a second
pass--but it is this: How long will a stimulus last in _undiminished
brightness_? How soon must it be followed by another stimulus (another
image) so that there may be fusion or continuity, the one succeeding
the other before the earlier has had time, not to disappear, but to
decline. If it has had time to decline in intensity, the appearance of
flickering results. That is what the cinematographer has to avoid. It
is found that a quicker succession--a shorter interval--is necessary
with strong light than with weaker light in order to produce
continuity. With a faint light the interval may be as great as
one-tenth of a second; with a strong light it must not exceed
one-thirtieth (or with still stronger light, one-sixtieth) of a
second. With the stronger light there is a more rapid and a greater
loss of the initial intensity of the impression or effect of stimulus,
and though each successive effect remains as long, or longer, in
dwindling intensity, you get want of continuity, or "flicker."]
[Footnote 4: What we may call the "visual size" of the sun happens to
be owing to its far greater size and its far greater distance from
us--very nearly the same as that of the moon--and is subject to the
same numerical law of apparent diameter, viz. a disc of any given
measurement in diameter will cover it exactly when held at a distance
from the eye which is 115 times that measurement.]