A manual of artistic anatomy for the use of students in art : being a description of the bones and muscles that influence the external form of man / by John C.L. Sparkes.

  • Sparkes, John C. L. (John Charles Lewis)
Date:
[1900]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A manual of artistic anatomy for the use of students in art : being a description of the bones and muscles that influence the external form of man / by John C.L. Sparkes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    INTRODUCTION. THIS book has been compiled because the writer felt that there is no work on Artistic Anatomy which gives with sufficient fulness the information the artist requires. On the one hand there are orderly and elaborate works written for the surgeon and student in medicine, on the other the mere lists of bones and muscles which are contained in the works written for the artist. It is hoped that this manual will avoid both the extreme of minuteness and that of super- ficiality. The method of study to be pursued by the student should be one that will utilize the written description, while actually drawing the skeleton, so that each projection, groove, or other peculiarity that is mentioned in the book, may be observed on the bones, and indicated in the sketch of the student. As to the muscles, it is difficult, and often for the artist impossible, to study them in the dissecting-room; therefore drawings should be made from the plates. In doing this, the student should be very careful to become ac- quainted with the origin and insertion of the muscle under observation, so as to trace the course it must necessarily take in passing from one point to another. This observation should be verified on the model if possible ; at any rate, the form of each muscle in the casts from antique statues that are in common use in our schools should be carefully fol- lowed. Only those depressions, ridges, expansions, or other points of interest which have any importance for an artist are dwelt upon; these are of consequence, either because the bone is near the surface of the body, and thus directly influences the form, or because the elevations, ridges, or processes are necessary to be known, that we may follow the direction and destination of muscles which are attached to them. The student in the life school is advised to make anatomical sketches of the living model he is drawing; this is best done away from the model. The sketch should be compared with the work done from nature, and should be corrected by reference to the model. The same practice, to some extent, may be followed by the students in the antique school, though the conventional form of portions of the casts from the antique is often a source of difficulty to the student. It may be necessary to remark that, al- though the artist’s study of anatomy should never cease, it is not so important a subject as to demand from the young painter time that would be better spent in acquiring the handicraft of his profession ; also that highly finished drawings are not necessary for the intelligent study of this subject, and that when a knowledge of the bones and muscles is gained, it is but one of the aids towards the full education of the artist’s observation, not in any sense an end to his practical study. J. C. L. S. May 1st, 1888.