[Study of Muscular Action: Young Man Leaning on a Horse's Leg]

1885

Medium

Lantern slide

Dimensions

4.3 × 4 cm

Status

In Museum Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-651253

Thomas Eakins' investigations into motion grew out of Eadweard Muybridge's animal locomotion project at the University of Pennsylvania. Eakins assisted Muybridge in finding models for his motion studies, and, erecting a separate shed on the campus, Eakins began to conduct his own experiments. This photograph is one of a series of what Eakins called "differential-action" studies, which culminated nine years later in a lecture entitled "The Differential Action of Certain Muscles Passing More than One Joint." This lantern slide image was probably used as a projected illustration during the talk. In order to demonstrate the tensile strengths of a horse's muscles, the man on the ladder balances his weight on the horse's skinned hind leg.