Child Bringing Bouquet to Woman

Eadweard Muybridge must have been far more interested in artistic representation than in science when producing Child Bringing Bouquet to Woman (1887). There is ample movement that could serve the study of locomotion, but the emotional warmth of this sequence suggests a rare attempt at narrative building through chronophotography. The exchange of the flowers for an embrace moves beyond simple storytelling, as the possibility of a plot between the two figures is left open to interpretation. By using actors to recreate a moment of tenderness between mother and child, Muybridge hinted at the possibility of using moving images to recreate real-life experiences through performance for the camera, taking baby steps towards narrative art.