Before cinema, moving images were created using clever visual illusions

WORDS NIKOLE ROBINSON

The zoetrope became a popular toy for children

While much of the animation that reaches our screens today is generated on computers, the history of hand-drawn animation goes back almost two centuries. Creating the illusion of movement was first achieved using a sequence of images on a flat disc called a phenakistoscope. Evenly spaced along the circumference of the disc were viewing slits, looked through as the user held the device up to a mirror and spun it. Peering through these slits at the images reflected in the mirror created a seamless looping sequence while the disc rotated at the right speed.

Several experimental contraptions were inspired by the phenakistoscope in an attempt to create a similar visual trickery, but the zoetrope was by far the most successful. Designed by William Ensign Lincoln in 1865, the zoetrope was a hollow drum perched atop a spindle, within which a strip of incrementally changing images could be placed. Vertical viewing windows were spaced around the zoetrope in order to view the strip of pictures inside. These were cut out higher on Lincoln’s version than in similar patents, above the image strip itself, allowing the strip to be replaced with others easily. With each stage of the strip lined up opposite these apertures, spinning the device brought the succession of still images to life for observers – and unlike the phenakistoscope, multiple people could view the animation at once.