66 THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE 



as it were, fused in our visual impression, because each 

 picture lasts on the retina of the eye for one tenth of a 

 second, or (to put it more accurately) because the " im- 

 pression " or condition of the retina produced by each 

 picture persists or endures for the tenth of a second. 



It may, perhaps, be suggested (and, indeed, has been), 

 that it is the " blurred " or " fused " picture produced by 

 the successive poses of the galloping horse's legs in one 

 tenth of a second that the painter ought to imitate on his 

 canvas. In support of this notion we have the fact that 

 the rapidly running wheels of a coach or of a gun-carriage 

 (as in the pictures by Wouwerman) are represented by 

 artists, not with the twelve or fourteen spokes which we 

 know to be there and would be photographed as separate 

 things in an exposure of the fortieth of a second but 

 as a blurred haze of some fifty or more indistinct 

 " spokes." In this case it undoubtedly results that the 

 observer of the picture is satisfied and receives the mental 

 impression or illusion of a rapid rotation of the wheel. I 

 have tried the experiment with instantaneous photographs 

 of the galloping horse, and I get three results : first, no 

 combination of successive phases occupying one tenth of 

 a second gives anything resembling the " flying gallop " 

 of the racing plates (the Mycenaean and Stubbsian pose), 

 or any other conventional pose ; second, no combination 

 of successive instantaneous photographs limited to ten 

 seconds gives any pose which satisfies the judgment and 

 suggests a movement like the gallop ; third, the combina- 

 tion which comes nearest to satisfying the judgment as 

 being a natural appearance, but does not quite succeed in 

 doing so, is one formed by the fusion of figs. 2 and 3 of 

 PI. I. This gives all four legs off the ground, drawn up 

 or flexed beneath the horse's body, as in Morot's picture 

 of the sabre-charge at Resonville. 



The fact is that we have to take into consideration two 



