Depth in Motion: Émile Reynaud and the Revolutionary Perspective of ‘The Slide’

Any first viewing of Émile Reynaud's The Slide may come across as unimpressive, especially for those unaware that it was first shown to an audience in 1878, and that it is one of the earliest works of animation in history. Watching the three boys go up a hill, then slide on the snow, and finally jump over a wooden post makes us smile, providing a light form of entertainment. And yet, this short Praxinoscope strip is a landmark in the history of moving images due to its skilful depiction of perspective in motion.

The history of perspective in art dates back to early examples in Ancient Egyptian reliefs[1] and Greco-Roman frescoes found in Pompeii[2], most commonly employing empirical perspective, conveying that smaller objects or figures in the composition are positioned further away from those in the foreground. It was not until the Renaissance that we find the first truly geometric representations of perspective[3], culminating in Raphael's celebrated masterpiece The School of Athens. For painters, perspective became critical in expanding the visual space limited by the canvas, imitating the human visual experience and therefore facilitating the immersion of the viewer in the work itself.

Having been trained by his mother to draw in watercolours[4], Reynaud was well versed in the many techniques to transform the two-dimensional space of a blank piece of paper into a three-dimensional world. In most of his Praxinoscope strips, he used perspective to set his subjects within a background that has depth, such as in The Roaster and The Pit-sawyers. In works such as The Swing and The Game of Graces, the characters are placed in different planes to imply distance. All of these examples operate on the same principle as static paintings, as the elements are trapped in the plane they were originally placed in.

The first time we see an object moving into perspective is in The Soap-bubbles, a work that mimics the same optical illusion previously achieved by stroboscopic discs. Then we have the animals seemingly changing size in The Learned Dogs, from the same first series of Praxinoscope strips. Arguably, this is the first example of animated beings moving through perspective, but if we analyse the individual static pictures, the proportions are maintained for each of the dogs, and it is only by spinning the strips that the optical illusion of perspective is generated. Later, in the third series of strips, we see a similar technique used in The Little Waltzers, but in the absence of a focal point of view, the result becomes visually disorienting. What sets The Slide apart from all of the other works in Émile Reynaud's early oeuvre is how he used his painting skills to deliver a genuinely complete experience of perspective in motion.

In the twelve images that comprise this sequence, there are only three distinct actions depicted. From left to right, we first have a boy in the background going down the snowy slide. Initially, he is blurred in the background, with barely visible facial features. As he slides down the slope, his features become more apparent, his body grows, and when he reaches the wooden post, we see his face in full view, whilst his stature matches that of the second boy. The second boy remains in the foreground throughout, performing the jump over the post, before turning his back to the viewer to begin his ascent up the hill. The third boy starts his journey at the bottom of the slope, and we see him become almost imperceptible at the top of the hill. Not only is he a miniature of his original size, his face is barely visible, but most importantly the colours on his clothes have faded into a near-monochromatic palette.

Reynaud treated each image as a work in itself, attending carefully to the perspectival demands of each figure's precise placement within that image. The colour schemes are tailored to each drawing whilst ensuring continuity where necessary. When stitched together, however, the boys merge into each other sufficiently to generate the optical illusion of continuous movement, whilst retaining a degree of individuality. The effectiveness of our perception of perspective in The Slide is attributable to the static wooden post and the jump at the centre of the image. Our eyes focus so intently on that action that we genuinely allow the ascent and corresponding descent of the two other boys to blur into the background. Reynaud used the reverse structure in The Clowns, but as the pivot is placed at the back and the clowns are not visibly changing proportions throughout, we are less able to appreciate the effects that perspective has in moving images.

When Orson Welles popularised the deep focus technique in Citizen Kane in 1941[5], audiences were reminded that the action happening in the background is as significant as that happening in the foreground. Moving pictures came to establish themselves not so much as a theatrical show in which attention is directed towards the action before us, but as a reproduction of the world around us, making the faithful rendering of perspective a necessary condition of that ambition.

Watching the early animation works for the Praxinoscope, it is evident that Émile Reynaud intended to use his newly devised apparatus as a medium for entertainment. To fulfil that vision, it was critical that his drawings reflect reality with great precision to guarantee the immersion of audiences in the moving world he was creating. The Slide stands as the culmination of that effort, as it succeeds in presenting motion not only parallel to the eye, but also perpendicular to it. Our focus changes from a single plane to multiple planes, making the full visual experience richer. By proving that images can move in multiple directions simultaneously, Reynaud had successfully created the conditions for animation to become a platform for complex storytelling. By the 1890s, his vision extended to feature-length works, but without these humble experiments it is unlikely that he would have earned his recognition as the grandfather of animation. In The Slide, we see an artist who uses rudimentary technology attempting to replicate life in its most charming complexity.

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References:

[1] Delli Castelli, Alessio. Ancient Egyptian Portraiture: History of an Idea; p. 741. Leiden: Brill, 2025.

[2] Sinisgalli, Rocco. Perspective in the Visual Culture of Classical Antiquity; pp. 115–118. New York City: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

[3] Kubovy, Michael. The Psychology of Perspective and Renaissance Art; pp. 162–173. New York City: Cambridge University Press, 1986.

[4] Fischer, Paul. The Man Who Invented Motion Pictures: A True Tale of Obsession, Murder, and the Movies; p. 198. New York City: Simon & Schuster, 2022.

[5] Hayward, Susan. Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts, 2nd Edition; p. 81. London & New York City: Routledge, 2002.