THE ELEPHANT IN MOTION (continued).
In the walking movement of a bird the method of getting the different phases will be the same as that of planning a walk for the human figure. Particularly, too, must the artist observe in the bird’s walk, the middle phases in which one leg crosses the vertical of the body to go forward for the implanting of its foot upon the ground.
With respect to the study of wing movement in flying birds, it is interesting to note that the Japanese artist apprehended the various positions that wings took in flying before the fact was demonstrated by photography. The Occidental artist, before the days of the instantaneous snap-shot camera, had but one or two stereotyped positions for picturing flying birds. Generally one of these positions had the wings pointing upward, and another with them outspread, more or less, horizontally. But the Japanese artist anticipated the snap-shot picture; he often had his flying birds with the wings drawn below the level of the bird’s body and pointing downward.
PIGEON IN FLIGHT.
Note the positions with the wings pointing downward. These are phases of wing movement anticipated by the Japanese artist before their existence was clearly shown by instantaneous photography.
Part of a plate in Muybridge’s “Animals in Motion.” Copyright, 1899, by Eadweard Muybridge. London, Chapman & Hall, Ltd. New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons. A valuable work for the artist in studying movement in animals.
COMIC WALK OF A DUCK.
Series of drawings required to move the bird from A to C.