Athletes Boxing

Boxing was probably the most popular sport to gain exposure through motion pictures in the nineteenth century. In Eadweard Muybridge’s early chronophotographic output we also find Athletes Boxing (1881), a vivacious encounter between two pugilists in combat. Prior to the reincarnation of the modern Olympic Games, Muybridge chose to strip his performers to allude to the ancient Greek tradition of practising sport in the nude. The lasting impression created by these athletic movements is one of timelessness. The series becomes a restaging of history rather than a study in anatomy. Motion pictures thus emerge as an artistic medium aided by science. These images linger in the viewer’s memory with the incredible force of beauty.