“Animare”
It’s in Latin, which means, “to give life to”, from this, it sparked a question in our mind, how did the Animation started? According to Ivan, he mentioned this man named Lucretius, apparently he wrote the poem called “De Rerum Natura” in c.70 BC (which is really in c.65 BC) about this “device” that project the hand drawn moving images. I wanted to see if this is actually true, I know that anything teachers/lecturers say, must be true, but not all the time. So I searched for his poem, it’s mighty long! It was a very interesting poems, he talked about particles, universe, the water and the wind and so on. But I couldn’t find which device Lucretius precisely mentioned, but he did describe the principle of “persistence of vision” where the optical effect of continuous motion produced when a series of sequential images were displayed, with each image lasting only momentarily. Even though he interpreted that theory from his dreams. That’s quite a finding Lucretius made.
But according to the film history, it was not Lucretius who supposedly started the idea of Animation. If we look at the Greek Philosopher, named Aristotle, he actually was the first person to observe and literally describe how he saw a light after-effect; a persistent image (that slowly faded away) after he gazed into the sun. In a way, that’s kind of relevant to Animation. So I would say he started it all.
However yet again, if we go all the way back to Palæolithic Age (which means “old age of the stone” in Greek) in around 40,000 BC, their paintings portraying the perception of motion within the paintings of animals which had multiple sets of legs in superimposed positions.
Referring back to Lucretius, I have just came across to the Greek astronomer and geographer named Ptolemy of Alexandria in 130 AD, he reinforced the theory of Lucretius, he actually discovered Lucretius theory and proved the Lucretius' principle of persistence of vision 200 YEARS later! Reminded me of Leonardo Da Vinci where he drew accurately blueprints of hydraulics, war machines and the flight and so on, then five centuries later, his inventions were made reality. Amazing!
Now looking at Egyptian Era in 1600BC, when Ivan mentioned about this, I felt I want to get on chariot riding past those columns. Pharaoh Ramses II built a temple of Isis and it got 110 columns. Amazingly, each column had a painted figure of the goddess Isis in a progressively change position. So when horsemen or charioteers were riding past, they would see motion of Goddess Isis.
There is a Greek version of the columns but without an adventure on chariot, and that is “The Parthenon Frieze” (5th century BC, and it’s forming the major part of the Elgin Marbles) it is displayed in British Museum.
I will pick out few things that ignite the perception of Animation; read below…it’s basic AND interesting stuffs from the history.
Magic Lantern:
The Magic Lantern or “Laterna Magica” is an early type of image projector developed in the late 16th century.
Camera Obsscura
The Camera Obscura (Latin; "camera" means "vaulted chamber/room" & "obscura" means "dark" therefore "darkened chamber/room") is an optical device that projects an image of its surroundings on a screen.
Thaumatrope
A thaumatrope is a toy that was popular in Victorian times. A disk or card with a picture on each side is attached to two pieces of string. When the strings are twirled quickly between the fingers the two pictures appear to combine into a single image due to persistence of vision.
Zoetrope
A zoetrope is a device that produces an illusion of action from a rapid succession of static pictures. The term zoetrope is from the Greek words "ζωή – zoe", "life" and τρόπος – tropos, "turn". It may be taken to mean "wheel of life".
3d Zoetrope
The Ghibli Museum hosts a zoetrope using 3D figures on a rotating disk. Rather than slits or mirrors, a strobing LED is used. The animation on this zoetrope is inspired by My Neighbour Totoro.
Pixar created a 3D zoetrope inspired by Ghibli's for its touring exhibition which first showed at the Museum of Modern Art, featuring characters from Toy Story. Two more 3D Zoetropes have been created by Pixar, both feature 360' viewing. One is installed at Disney's California Adventure, sister park to Disneyland and the other is installed at Hong Kong Disneyland.
The original Pixar Toy Story 3D Zoetrope still travels worldwide and has been shown in London England, Edinburgh Scotland, Melbourne Australia, Seoul Korea, Helsinki Finland, Monterrey Mexico, Taipei Tawain, Kaohsiung Taiwan, Singapore, and is currently at Oakland California.
Praxinoscope
The Praxinoscope was an animation device, the successor to the zoetrope. It was invented in France 1877 by Charles-Émile Reynaud. Like the zoetrope, it used a strip of pictures placed around the inner surface of a spinning cylinder.
