Tracing the history of motion, Giedion concludes that movement is the key to modern thought. This profound statement is unfortunately underdeveloped, not extending beyond the short paragraph which vaguely alludes to the potential for expressive forms and points broadly to the sciences for legitimacy. Despite Giedion’s somewhat hollow climax, the argument is still a convincing one, primarily resting on the quixotic and seductive work of Étienne Jules Marey.
Returning time and again to blood streams, the gaits of the horses, the flights of birds, Marey spent his lifetime meticulously documenting movement that he said ‘escapes the eye.’ One of his most legendary discoveries was the moment when all four legs of a galloping horse are off the ground, a fact unknown to hippologists at the time. Marey is also renowned for his inventive apparatuses, such as his photographic gun – a fact that likely impressed Giedion, the first secretary-general of CIAM and a leading advocate of the technological agenda of Modernism.
Besides Marey, a myriad of other innovators dot the pages of Movement, broadening the roots of the concept. The somewhat predictable associations are made to Eadweard Muybridge, Marcel Duchamp, and the Lumière brothers while less direct, but equally logical connections are drawn to Frank B. Gilbreth – the father of scientific management, Stéphane Mallarmé – French poet and intellectual; James Watt – inventor of the steam engine; Henri Bergson – renowned French philosopher of time and evolution; and James Joyce.
Given the expansive foundation provided by Giedion, the potential for conceptualizing movement is a strong and exciting one, but still in need of clarification and justification. Restated: movement is ever-present and deeply beautiful, but if we must embrace it, to what ends?
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