Motion lines

Lines depicting wind and the trajectory of missiles appear in art as early as the 16th century.

[2] By the 19th century artists were drawing naturally occurring speed lines when showing the passage of an object through water or snow, but it was not until the 1870s that artists like Wilhelm Busch and Adolphe Willette began drawing motion lines to depict the movement of objects through air.

[3] The French artist Ernest Montaut is usually credited with the invention of speed lines.

Carmine Infantino was one of the best known practitioners of motion lines, particularly in his illustration of Silver Age Flash comics.

A similar effect is found in long-exposure photography, where a camera can capture lights as they move through time and space, blurred along the direction of motion.