A New Art Finds Its Voice: Eadweard Muybridge's ‘The Kiss’ and the Defiance of Convention

When Eadweard Muybridge photographed two women greeting each other, leading to a warm embrace and ending with a kiss, one wonders whether he understood the unique magnitude this series of images would have in the history of moving pictures. The Kiss is the first work of chronophotography to feature women, postdating only the female characters appearing in many of Émile Reynaud's early animations. It is also the first work exploring sensuality through images in motion, showing us a kiss that broke the boundaries of heteronormativity in a society that only allowed a single expression of desire[1]. And, the novelty does not stop at what is shown on the screen. The method of shooting the same episode from multiple points of view is pioneering for the development of cinema in the decades to follow, predating its application in film by nearly two decades.

Following the successful experiments of creating the illusion of motion through photographing horse gaits as shown in Sallie Gardner at a Gallop, Muybridge used the same stage to record male athletes performing various sporting acts, mainly in the nude, placing his new technique on a par with the cultural achievements of the Ancient Greeks. These late 1870s studies are significant in proving that human actions can also be reproduced through chronophotography; however, they all suffer from poor lighting, often reducing the human form to a silhouette floating over the ground. By the early 1880s, Muybridge had perfected his staging to be able to capture images with enviable clarity. The crispness of The Kiss is striking, pointing to rapid technological improvements in a matter of just a few years.

The bodies appear in their full glory, allowing scientists to finally gain deep insights into locomotion. The movement achieved by the fast interchange of the photographs permits the exploration in detail of the musculature of the human form, upon even the most subtle of actions. The faces in their turn are lit abundantly for us to admire the multitude of expressions our countenance is capable of achieving. The high quality of the photographs allows us to gaze into the eyes of the two ladies to understand the full depth of their emotions, raw and unobstructed by technical limitations. With this sequence, Muybridge announced to the world that chronophotography is no longer a gimmick but a genuine new mechanism of recording everything around us with depth and precision.

The director's obsession with the nude[2] is partly explained by his scientific interest in locomotion, and partly by his inspiration from the art of the Hellenistic world. In works such as Athlete Walking 1 or Athletes Boxing, both of these influences lead to a potent symbiosis between art and science, proving to be of equal interest to scientists concerned with human anatomy and aesthetes in search of metaphors. However, The Kiss, albeit superior in photographic quality, offers minimal movement and its protagonists breathe with modernity, making us question whether the two original concerns are still at play here.

Analysing the three different sequences in detail, it is at first advisable to consider the study of locomotion as a driver of the creative process. By showing the same action from multiple angles, Muybridge provided a nearly complete 360° view of the human physique in movement. The complex construction of the body can be studied holistically, clarifying scientific speculations on how different sets of muscles and bones behave when engaged in action. The simple act of walking and the handshake gain significance when viewed through this scientific lens, providing much insight into the biology of our species.

The kissing act can be viewed from the same perspective, but at this point we must question whether the intention in making this work has a scientific basis[3]. When the two women meet each other, we sense a strong warmth, particularly driven by the facial expression of the seemingly younger character. Their kiss, though staged, is not entirely mechanical. It may not be passionate, but it is not lacking in sensuality. Is this a kiss between two friends or two lovers? Muybridge left the question unanswered, thus leaving space for interpretation. On the one hand, given the conservative views of Victorian society[4], a kiss between two friends would appear as an innocent staging of common camaraderie. On the other hand, given the same views, a kiss between two women in the nude would alarm that society, provoking a revolutionary debate on same-sex love.

Even if we accept the common interpretation that as second-class citizens women in the nineteenth century had inadvertently more freedom in expressing their sexual desires[5], Muybridge's choice to photograph the act in this particular manner is unquestionably provocative. As an artist, he was seen as madly eccentric by his peers[6], which would explain his keenness to shock with his work, and not merely impress. By veiling the work with a scientific purpose, Muybridge dared to push the boundaries of what is morally acceptable to photograph. As a result, his lesbian kiss stands as a testament to human diversity, celebrating the purity of the act without prejudice.

In photographing this kiss from multiple angles, the artist managed to prove that the new medium has no subject it cannot tackle. The moving images are there to show reality from multiple perspectives, each giving us a continuation of a story that starts with simplicity and ends with more complexity. Chronophotography as an art form becomes through this work a medium capable of story-telling, one that can equally analyse human behaviour and emotion. Most importantly, it became a medium that could participate fully in the dialogue of ideas through aesthetics on equal footing with the other arts.

The Kiss is a glimpse of the potential that moving pictures were to have in society. At once revolutionary and multi-faceted, this work stands out in the pre-cinematic oeuvre as a symbol of defiance against the norm. Chronophotography, as a precursor to film, had to position itself with a distinct perspective, reproducing reality to give it a completely new vision of itself. Nearly from the start, Eadweard Muybridge lost no time in giving photography that singular new voice. Showing two muses kissing to give birth to a new art form in front of their god Apollo, maybe Muybridge did not steer far from his Hellenistic roots in the end.

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References:

[1] Doane, Mary Ann. The Emergence of Cinematic Time: Modernity, Contingency, the Archive; pp. 203-204. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2002.

[2] Slide, Anthony. Silent Topics: Essays on Undocumented Areas of Silent Film; pp. 44-45. Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2005.

[3] Wojcik-Andrews, Ian. Children's Films: History, Ideology, Pedagogy, Theory; p. 151. New York City: Garland Publishing, Inc., 2005.

[4] Rosenberg, Miles. "Friendship" in Reader's Guide to Lesbian and Gay Studies, edited by Timothy F. Murphy; p. 235. Chicago & London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 2000.

[5] Fantina, Richard. Victorian Sensational Fiction: The Daring Work of Charles Reade; p. 114. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

[6] Gordon, Sarah Anne. Indecent Exposures: Eadweard Muybridge's Animal Locomotion Nudes; pp. 5-6. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2015.