Anatomy for artists / by John Marshall ; illustrated by two hundred original drawings by J.S. Cuthbert.

  • Marshall, John, 1818-1891.
Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Anatomy for artists / by John Marshall ; illustrated by two hundred original drawings by J.S. Cuthbert. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and so derange its relative buoyancy or balance. During contraction, the fleshy portions of the living body are displaced and disturbed in their forms, but not diminished in size ; if they become widened, they are simultaneously shortened; if the tendons are straightened and rendered more prominent, the adjacent fat and skin are drawn or forced in, by their elasticity or by atmospheric pressure. The sculptor must, therefore, realise his effects by a different disposal of his material on the two sides of the body, or on opposite limbs, according as these are at rest or in action ; but his quantities must remain the same. In the female figure, the muscular- system generally, is, of course, less developed and the muscular forms are less pronounced; but, besides this, although the skin itself is thinner and softer, the adipose layer beneath it, is proportionally thicker, so that this alone would conceal the muscular forms more completely than in the male. But there are other characteristics. Thus, the feet and hands are less muscular, along their borders; whilst the balls of the thumb and little ringer are proportionally narrower. The muscles of the leg and fore-arm have their fleshy parts relatively longer, and their tendinous parts relatively shorter, than they are in man; moreover, the muscular fasciculi do not terminate so boldly on the tendons; so that, for both reasons, the legs and arms are more smoothly and gradually tapered from above downwards ; the swell of the calf is especially more gentle, and descends lower down, in women than in men. All the muscles of the thigh are wider in proportion to their length, and the glutei are larger, as the greater width between the acetabula increases the necessity for larger muscles, to balance the trunk on the head of one or other femur, in walking. The lumbar, and other spinal muscles are less pronounced; and so are the muscles lying in the back, which belong to the upper limb. In front of the torso, the abdominal mus- cles are full, but those of the pectoral region small, and obscured by the largely developed mammary gland. The muscles of the neck and throat are . long and slender. The deltoid is oval in contour, and has no abrupt swell; the muscles of the arm are small, so that this part of the upper limb is rounded, and not flattened, at the sides and back; lastly, as already stated, the muscles of the fore-arm are more gradually and uniformly tapered, from above downwards to the wrist. The female muscles approach in character to those of the infant or child, especially exhibiting this likeness in the limbs, in which parts, in children, unlike the long tendons found in the male figure, these cords are also, as in the female, proportionally short, the muscles appearing to descend very low down in the limbs. In old age, the tendons become still more evident, and the fleshy masses waste, so that the ' shrunk shank' becomes associated with the bended knees, the emaciated forms of the trunk, and the stooping position of the back and