The Musician Monkey

Émile Reynaud’s animated work predates the successes of moving photography. His drawings were brought to life through the praxinoscope. One of these works from his second series of strips is “The Musician Monkey” (1878). Charming yet simultaneously unsettling in its visuals, this proto-animation harks back to the heyday of magic lantern shows, aiming to entertain audiences with beauty and humour. The functional composition is rudimentary, as it focuses primarily on movement rather than artistic refinement. On closer inspection, however, the rapid movement of the fingers and the vibration of the strings become apparent. This experiment in simian anthropomorphism announced to the world that pictures were no longer still.