Woman Descending an Incline: Plate 118 from Animal Locomotion (1887)
Eadweard J. Muybridge
American, born England. 1830–1904
1884-86
A collotype photograph from Muybridge’s Animal Locomotion that records a woman in a sequence of timed exposures as she descends an inclined plane to document the phases of human movement.
A striking grid of repeated freeze‑frames—rows of small panels against a gridded backdrop with a stool—turns a single step downward into a rhythmic, almost mechanical procession of shifting body positions.
Muybridge’s motion studies pioneered photographic analysis of locomotion and helped lay the technical and conceptual groundwork for biomechanics and the emergence of cinema.
Medium
Collotype
Dimensions
8 1/2 × 13 1/4" (21.6 × 33.7 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of Jane K. Murray
Accession
24.1944
Palette
Exhibitions
