Athlete Swinging a Pick

Eadweard Muybridge stripped to his bare skin in Athlete Swinging a Pick (1881) in order to show the full force achievable through human movement. This pose echoes the art of classical Greece, where the naked human body is celebrated for its architecture. It is as if Muybridge saw himself as a Promethean figure, liberating action from the confines of the static photograph. His pick slices through the canvas with the same ferocity Lucio Fontana applied to his Spatial Concept: Expectation (1960), leaving behind echoes of movements of the past. This chronophotographic work stands as one of the earliest examples of cinematic symbolism. The grandfather of cinema rarely appeared before his own camera, making this short an archival treasure within the prehistory of film.