Athletes Wrestling

The sequence of photographs Athletes Wrestling (1881) by Eadweard Muybridge presents two fighters locked in a Greco-Roman bout. Through his association with the Olympic Club of San Francisco, Muybridge had access to numerous volunteers who performed for his cameras. The wrestlers ignore the setting and focus solely on the sport, allowing authenticity to project with force in the final photographs. Even in the absence of continuous motion, we appreciate the intensity of the fight, rendering the series a pictogram of a moment poised between past and present. These images are at once a nostalgic reminder of the Classical games and an apt precursor to the modern Olympic movement.