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Optical Toys
Stereo Viewers, Zoopraxiscopes,
and Zoetropes
In order to reach the widest audience and
sell more images, many 19th-century photographers produced photographs
to be used in stereo viewers or optical toys. Eadweard Muybridge was
no exception. He produced and sold hundreds of stereographs, especially
views of the Yosemite Valley. In a popular parlor pastime, families
entertained themselves looking at the stereographs, which became three-dimensional
when placed in handheld or tabletop viewers.
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Tourist group in Yosemite Valley, 1867
Stereograph by Muybridge
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The Midway at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago
in 1893. The white arrow at the lower left points out Muybridge's Zoopraxigraphical
Hall.
Zoopraxiscope designed by Muybridge to show drawings from his motion photographs
(courtesy Kingston-upon-Thames Museum)
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In his later photography, Muybridge reproduced
his motion studies on strips to be used inside zoetropes. These popular
devices provided viewers with the ability to animate photographs while
spinning the top cylinder of the zoetrope and seeing the moving
images through small slits. To animate his motion studies for audiences
at his lectures, Muybridge invented a machine called a zoopraxiscope.
Illustrations of his photographs of human and animal locomotion were drawn
and reproduced on glass plates used in the machine. In 1893, Muybridge
opened the Zoopraxigraphical Hall, on the Midway of the Columbian Exposition
in Chicago, for presentations using the zoopraxiscope. However, the machine
was never a commercial success.
Zoopraxigraphic fan sold by Muybridge in Chicago,
1893
Photos courtesy of Gordon Hendricks, Eadweard Muybridge: The Father
of the Motion Picture
(ANIMATION AVAILABLE)
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