An introductory lecture on pictorial anatomy, delivered to the students of the School of Design of the Honourable the Commissioners of the Board of Trustees for the Encouragement of Scottish Manufactures, and published at the request of the Honourable Board / by James Miller.

  • Miller, James, 1812-1864.
Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An introductory lecture on pictorial anatomy, delivered to the students of the School of Design of the Honourable the Commissioners of the Board of Trustees for the Encouragement of Scottish Manufactures, and published at the request of the Honourable Board / by James Miller. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    11/32 (page 11)
    which exists only in the mind to that which exists in nature; but the preference of that which is fine in nature to that which is less so.” And hence it is that a knowledge of the Anatomy of Nature is necessary to the construction of the true ideal. An artist ignorant of Anatomy would be sorely per- plexed to reconcile his ideal with the natural form, and many failures might not — most probably, would not — result in ultimate success ; whilst, on the con- trary, he who knows the nature as well as the form of joints, bones, muscles, and skin,—their relative position, and the change therein which motion in- duces, would have comparatively little difficulty in the execution of his task. If, on the contrary, all art were but a mere tran- script of individual nature, without the ideal selection from nature at large, again would Anatomy sink into insignificance, as a guide to the artist. For all his labour then would be, leisurely to transfer the object before him to his canvass or the marble. A man may paint a mere likeness of another’s face, another may chisel it in stone, faithfully and accu- rately, and yet be ignorant in all respects of its Anatomy. A landscape painter may transfer to his canvass an exact representation of a particular view, and yet know nothing of the geological structure, — just as a man may laboriously copy a portion of Greek or Hebrew, correctly enough, without understanding its import, or its parts of speech. But, in art, no one can leave individual