Around the Animated Image
The functioning of the equipment designed to animate the image is based on the phenomenon of the persistence of the retinal image: when the images that make up a movement follow each other rapidly and with a break between each one, our eye does not notice this and the movement appears to us to be continuous as in reality.
The cinematographic magic lantern functions on the same principle as the lantern for fixed images, with, in addition, a bladed shutter in front of the lens and a system of film advancement, comprising a perforated 35mm transparent continuous band.
The Mutoscopes were marketed from 1894 by the American Mutoscope Company and distributed in Paris from 1899: by feeding a ten centimes coin into the machine, one could turn a handle and watch “a scene full of life and animation”. The pictures were little sheets of paper mounted on a wheel, which could hold about a thousand. When this started up, an incandescent lamp came on. The subjects of these papers were very varied, with a decided preference for saucy scenes!
