Vintage Athletes - Part 39

Muybridge Gymnasts

We continue our look at the stop-motion photography of Eadweard Muybridge, published in his 1887 book Animal Locomotion. Muybridge did his work at the University of Pennsylvania, and his subjects were mostly students, graduates, or teachers at the university.  Today we look at gymnastics.

Each plate in Animal Locomotion consists of a series of photos taken at split-second intervals.  I made all of the gifs in this post from the photos on the plates.

Plate 166, above, is called "Jumping over a man's back (leap-frog)."  Although leap frog is not usually considered a gymnastic exercise, the jumping that it involves is similar to some other gymnastic routines.  The model doing the leaping is model 54.  I have not seen him identified.

Plate 362 is called "Back somersault."  The model is model 33, also not identified.

Plate 363 is called "Running somersault."  The model is model 34, not identified.

Plate 364 is called "Hand-spring over man's back."  The model doing the handspring is model 29.  He has been identified as Thomas J Grier.  Grier was one of the students who assisted Muybridge in his studio.  Grier later recalled that Muybridge had a penchant for working naked himself while photographing the naked human form.  "Muybridge was a peculiar man," Grier remarked.  "He did not give a hang for clothes and we used to have to keep an eye on him in the studio."

This sequence from plate 522 is called "Hand-spring," but instead of Muybridge's usual sequence of photos taken a split-second apart to capture motion, this set of photos, taken simultaneously, captures views of the athlete's handspring from different directions at one instant in time.  Putting them together give the illusion that the model is rotating.  This sequence contained only six photos capturing views around a half-circle (180 degrees), so I added horizontally flipped versions of the photos to make a twelve-photo sequence giving the appearance of 360 degrees.

The model is model 98, who has not been identified.