The Baby's Breakfast

An artist working at a high rate will inevitably produce works that do not match their full potential. “The Baby’s Breakfast” (1878) is one such case within Émile Reynaud’s oeuvre. The baby’s depiction mildly echoes the painting style of the Belle Époque, but the action intended for this animation remains limited in scope. Overall, the work feels like an exercise in depicting miniature movements, as the focus is heavily centred on the blinking of the eyes and the act of mastication. The result, though polished, fails to generate genuine excitement for the new medium, thereby demonstrating that content quality was critical to the appreciation of visual art from the very beginning of its history.