Olympic Photos by Paul Richer, Part 2b
Yesterday some of you wondered how Paul Richer was able to get so many Olympic athletes to pose nude in 1900. I did a little digging, and this is what I found.
As part of the 1900 Paris Olympics, a Commission on Hygiene and Physiology was created to study the athletes, to determine the effects of various sports on bodily functions, respiration, blood circulation, digestion, and general health. Further, the Commission was to study the various sports themselves, attempt to understand their mechanisms, and uncover the secret of superiority of certain athletes. Quite an assignment!
Remember, the 1900 Paris Olympics was only the second Olympics in modern times (the first was the Athens Olympics in 1896), so sports physiology was a new idea.
The Commission was headed by French physiologist Étienne-Jules Marey, who was renowned for photographing and studying human movement, much like his contemporary Eadweard Muybridge was doing in the U.S. And like Muybridge, Marey photographed many of his subjects naked. He invented a camera that took multiple images on film at even intervals; however, he couldn't play back the images with even timing (a problem solved later by Thomas Edison). The gif above is from photos that Marey took called Homme Qui Marche (Man Walking), c. 1890.
As head of the Commission, Marey took many series of photos (mini-movies) of the Olympic athletes. Most of them were clothed or at least wore jockstraps, but one athlete was captured performing in the nude, throwing what looks like a shot put overhand (above) ...
and underhand. Unfortunately, we don't know the name of this athlete.
And what about Paul Richer? He was also on the same Commission, and he was tasked with taking anthropomorphic photos of the athletes. To Richer, that meant nude photos.
Because this was an official Olympic commission, almost all the athletes who were asked to participate did so. The result, in addition to Marey's little movie sequences, was that Richer took about 300 nude photos of Olympic athletes, including the photos that I will be showing in this series.
Next time: more Paul Richer Olympic athlete photos.
