An Atlas of Anatomy for Artists

Bones, muscle, tendons, veins, straight-on poses, action poses - you name it, this book has it. It is a classic, written in 1947 and revised since. I have one of the older copies. If you are an artist, or an aspiring artist, you need good references, and this book has them. Without good references, you are leaving too much to your imperfect visual memory - and unless you are a very rare individual, your work simply will not look right. That's because we can innately tell when something isn't right about things we have seen over and over (like the human body), though we may not know exactly what is missing.

All of the bones and muscles of the body are drawn from different views and named. Many of the sketch series in this book document the changes between young children, to adulthood, to old age. Not only do we have figures to study, but there are black and white photos of human specimens to study, posing straight-on and side-view - a range of sex and age. There are closeups of eyes and hands, two of the hardest bodyparts to draw.

The book closes with samples of drawings by masters such as Leonardo Da Vinci, and Michelangelo.

There may be better books on anatomy out there, as one Amazon reviewer claims, but if there is I haven't seen it. When in doubt, I will go with the time-tested classic every time.