Customer Reviews

The Artist's Guide to Human Anatomy (Dover Anatomy for Artists)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'd have to say this book isn't another "How To" in terms of the basics of learning anatomy. This book is best described as a "Coursework Guide to Anatomy" the misleading title may make you think this is yet another basic how to draw that you see in other books. What this book does is something I really haven't see much in other books and puts it together in a really good outline that if you were a student studying the human form in a year, these are the projects you do to learn the figure through and through.

The first section shows first semester students studying proportion. It is done in a combination of cut outs and paint strokes. Sketches were done to get the student familiar with the proportion rather than anatomic details.

The focus turns to contrapposto, the physics of how the body shifts the pelvis and weight to regain its center of gravity while standing.

The book then shifts on focusing on individual parts of the anatomy before working the body as a whole.

Favorite parts of this book has to do with making various bone structures into geometric shapes and planes. It gives a better understanding on how to construct the skull and the planes of the face, and the shoulder and pelvis.

This book is a MUST have with any anatomy book that is usually recommended. The various course guides really are inspirational and ingenious as to how to learn the figure.

I really love the print quality of the book as well. Nice glossy paper and great demonstrations from other students in how to learn the figure.

The drawback is that the author seems to have picked up the thesaurus a bit much and could have offered more clear writing for the beginner since the book says this is good for beginners too.

This book will probably become one of my "Tier 3" books I'd say one has to get to learn figure drawing. 1. Constructive Anatomy 2. (A good artistic guide to Anatomy and Figure drawing) 3. This book.

This was definitely worth the purchase!

Beware: this book contains only a *tiny* fraction of the teaching presented in Bammes's original figure drawing books, which only exist in German ("Die Gestalt des Menschen" and "Menschen Zeichnen", both of which I *highly* recommend. The first is his big Anatomy book; the second a more recent distillation of it, and in my opinion more friendly to the visual-learner than the big book, due to the clarity of the illustrations and the number of drawings included in it).

Unlike his original books, this one consists mostly of drawings done by his students. It is interesting, to be sure, but it alone doesn't explain why Bammes's sculptural approach to drawing is considered to be *the* standard approach in many European countries nowadays. For that, you'd have to check his original books out.

The author's original book included both Human and Animal Anatomy. I knew it had been separated and translated into English. I saw the Human Anatomy one and thought this is what was on Amazon. Instead of a book that was over an inch thick, what arrived was a book less than a 1/4 inch!

No wonder it was so cheap. Having said this, I do think it was worth the few bucks it cost.

Gary Smith , Art Coach

I bought this book for the study of the different styles of human anatomy. This book is a great complement to Constructive Anatomy or Artistic Anatomy. Excellent!

paperback book, some useful information on anatomy. Not as concise as I thought it would be.