Étienne-Jules Marey

Conchita Fernandes looks back at the remarkable life of Étienne-Jules Marey, the relatively less known pioneer of the study of movement.

When Leland Stanford approached Eadweard Muybridge in 1872, he came with an unusual request; to photographically prove that at some point all four limbs of a horse are suspended mid-air during a trot or a gallop. After a slew of unsuccessful attempts, in 1878, Muybridge used 12 cameras to prove the theory, and forever became synonymous with the study of locomotion. But several miles away, a French scientist by the name of Étienne-Jules Marey was already underway in his experimentations involving animal and bird movement. All he was missing was a camera.

Studying the Intricacies of Motion

For Marey, a doctor and physiologist, the human body was an animate machine, and he was curious about how it functioned and what caused it to move. He conducted extensive tests and experiments on the circulation and hydraulics of blood and breath, the elasticity, strength and tone of muscle, and built a variety of elaborate mechanical instruments to aid him in the process. But he found this limiting, and gradually moved his focus to the physical aspect of how birds and animals moved. He hoped and dreamed that his findings would be useful in building machines that were as adept and dexterous as living beings.

Examining Birds...