Marey's focus on movement and his way of analyzing it, the evolution of his instruments of mechanical deconstruction –- graphic, photographic and cinematographic -- mark one of the most important scientific advances of the nineteenth century. We forget that there once was a time when we did not know how humans walk or run or how a horse gallops or a bird flies. Before Marey’s experiments there was no consistent or reliable way of mapping the changes and fluctuations that occur within and without the body or of the movements of water and air. This is the world Marey utterly changed. Now thanks to the BIUM putting online a selection of the plaques held at the Collège de France, we can follow the trajectory of his work for the first time and finally understand its full significance.

© Marta Braun 2009 – All rights reserved