Friday, November 20, 2009

Artist's Models on Modeling -Books about Artists and Models

Franz Fiedler, Artist and Model


Andrew Cahner sent me a copy of his book, The Art Model's Handbook: The Naked Truth about Posing for Art Classes and Fine Artists. He is an experienced life model himself and combines his knowledge of the business with interviews of other models, artists and booking agents to produce an unusually complete book about modeling for artists.

Among the models he interviewed is Parker McPhinney, who was the model who appeared as a model on Star Trek, The Next Generation.

By combining the various perspectives in one book he provides the aspiring model with information about what is expected of the model and how to do the best job possible and also shows the artist how to make the model comfortable and treat the model professionally and therefore how to get the best possible drawing experience out of a session.

At the back of the book he includes five really useful documents, a sample model release, a model's protocol, a sample memo to new models from a model booker, an art model policy for the faculty, and a memo to the faculty on the scheduling of models.

The internet is full of tips for models and note on the experience of modeling, and this book includes links to the best of the sites, but everyone involved in representational figure drawing from the model to the artist should take a look at this book to get a perspective on the experience different from their own and to make the experience a profitable one for everyone involved.

To see the book at Amazon.com click on the link:
The Art Model's Handbook: The Naked Truth about Posing for Art Classes and Fine Artists


Here are a couple of other books documenting the model's experience:




Finding Human Form: Artists' Models in Studio and Classroom,
a book by Savannah Author Linda Bulloch and Michael Porten, an alumnus of the Savannah College of Art an Design discusses what is is like to be an artist's model. Linda Bulloch is a model. Michael Porten is an illustrator.

From The Chronicle, The Official Source of Information about SCAD events, people, policis and programs. Studio model draws on experience for book.

Bulloch is a retired college counselor who has worked as a studio model for 12 years, eight of them at SCAD. For the past three years, she has coordinated the studio model program for the animation, fashion, foundation studies, illustration, painting and sequential art departments. Twenty-two models with a variety of body types, ages, ethnicities and backgrounds work for her office, she said. In the book, Bulloch analyzes the experience and role of studio models. She discusses stage fright, life drawing, body types, illustrative techniques and concepts of beauty. She also provides information about life drawing syllabi, media, poses, lighting and instruction. “I think there’s no book like this for artists and general readership on this subject, on studio models in an academic environment,” she said. “When I was doing the research I didn’t find anything that talked about this aspect of art education.”



Kathleen Rooney, from her book tour.

Live Nude Girl: My Life as an Object

From Publishers Weekly:
Starred Review. Author, award-winning poet and professional artists' model Rooney (Reading with Oprah, Something Really Wonderful) uses everything from Roland Barthes quotations to sitcom episode synopses off the internet (specifically, fortunecity.com on Growing Pains) to explore the myths and realities of nude modeling...


Artist and Model by W. R. Watkins

A photograph circa 1900 showing an artist at work in the studio with 2 models.

Wikipedia Article: Figure Drawing.









A poster for a Jack Benny Movie, Artists and Models.

Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in Artists & Models [VHS]


Modeling Life: Art Models Speak About Nudity, Sexuality, And the Creative Process

Saturday, November 14, 2009

How to Draw Pretty Girls - New E-book



I have a new e-book on Figure-Drawings.com. It is called How to Draw Pretty Girls. In it he shows the step-by-step method of drawing cartoons of girls. The techniques of how to draw girls include drawings of proportions of girls, stick figures to work up poses, how to draw the head, how to draw hair, plus examples of finished drawings.

Click here to see the e-book.

D. W. Gregg published his own book in 1952. In the 1950s photo offset printing became economical and enabled a number of authors to self-publish how-to-books. This was one of them. It was originally published in two booklets, one had the illustrations and the second had the text. I have combined the two for this e-book.




Gregg's illustrations are typical of the drawings of the period. you can compare them to the work of Al Capp who drew the famous L'il Abner strip, Milton Caniff who drew Steve Canyon and Terry and the Pirates and Dan DeCarlo who drew Archie Comics as well as other titles like Millie the Model, My Friend Irma
and Sherry the Showgirl. See Innocence and Seduction: The Art of Dan DeCarlo at Amazon.com for more on Dan DeCarlo.



Female Proportions.

Al Capp - sheet music.











Al Capp - cartoon.

Milton Canniff- cartoon panel.









How to Draw Pretty Girls - head.

How to Draw Pretty Girl - cover.












How to draw Pretty Girls - seated figure.

How to Draw Pretty Girls - step-by-step.


How to Draw Pretty Girls - stick figures and proportions.










Al Capp's Li'l Abner: The Frazetta Sundays, Vol. 2: 1956-57



Li'l Abner Volume 1










Milton Caniff's Steve Canyon: 1947 (Steve Canyon Series)


The Complete Terry and the Pirates, Vol. 3: 1939-1940







D. W. Gregg female cartoon.


Another post about pretty girls - Drawing the Female Figure by Jefferson Machamer.


How to draw girls - The Female Form - Better Figure Drawing - by Cecile Hardy









Here are some other pretty comic book girls from Ben Samuel's Classic Golden Age Comic Cover Gallery.

Millie the Model #31 by Dan DeCarlo


Millie the Model (Millie the Model, #5, 1947) at Amazon.com.



Millie the Model #17 - as an artist's model

Click here to see Millie the Model Comics for sale on Ebay.


Dan DeCarlo's My Friend Irma at Scott Brother's Blog.











Pin-Up Art of Dan DeCarlo Vol. 2 (v. 2)

Dan DeCarlo was the main Archie Comics artist setting the style for Archie, Veronica and Betty. He did lots of pin-up and cheese-cake art before and while he worked at Archie Comics.

Wikipedia Article.




More examples at HappyJolly.com.


Archie Comics Digest Magazine No. 86 (The Archie Digest Library, No. 86)










Crime Reporter #1

Junior #10











Jumbo #105

Cindy #37











More links about how to draw for the comics:


Comic Artist's Photo Reference Women And Girls



Manga Mania: Girl Power!: Drawing Fabulous Females for Japanese Comics




Drawing Cutting Edge Anatomy: The Ultimate Reference for Comic Book Artists







Making Faces: Drawing Expressions For Comics And Cartoons



How to Draw Those Bodacious Bad Babes of Comics


Incredible Comics with Tom Nguyen: The Ultimate Guide to Creating Kick-Ass Comic Art







Other posts on Pin-Up Girls.

Ted Withers - Hollywood Pin-Up Girls

Pin-Up Artist and Model Zoe Mozert

Johann Casper Lavater - Human Physiognomy





Johann Caspar Lavater. Essays on Physiognomy, designed to promote the knowledge and the love of mankind. Translated from the French by Henry Hunter.


From Wikipedia:

Lavater's name would be forgotten but for his work in the field of physiognomy, Physiognomische Fragmente zur Beförderung der Menschenkenntnis und Menschenliebe (1775-1778). The fame of this book, which found admirers in France and England as well as Germany, rests largely upon the handsome style of publication and the accompanying illustrations. The two principal sources from which Lavater developed his physiognomical studies were the writings of the Italian polymath Giambattista della Porta, and the observations made by Sir Thomas Browne in his Religio Medici (translated into German in 1748 and praised by Lavater).




Physiognomy In Profile: Lavater's Impact On European Culture























A death mask behind the face of pretty girl symbolizing the ephemeral nature of beauty. From Wikipedia.

Physiognomy and facial recognition began to be discussed again in the aftermath of 9-11 and the stereotyping or suspects. Here is an essay on the subject: Christopher Lukasik - The Physiognomy of Biometrics with a reference to Lavater.




The Wellcome Library has a lot of images.

































Das Antlitz Gottes im Antlitz des Menschen: Zugange zu Johann Kaspar Lavater (Arbeiten zur Geschichte des Pietismus) (German Edition)


The Wisdom of Your Face: Change Your Life with Chinese Face Reading!


Physiognomy and the Meaning of Expression in Nineteenth-Century Culture (Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture)


Other posts on physiognomy.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Encyclopédie, ou, Dictionnaire universel raisonné des connoissances humaines






Encyclopédie, ou, Dictionnaire universel raisonné des connoissances humaines By Denis Diderot, Fortuné Barthélemy de Félice.

From Wikipedia:

The Encyclopaedia or Universal Dictionary of rational human knowledge, called Yverdon Encyclopedia was an encyclopedia published between 1770 and 1780 in 58 quarto volumes (42 articles, 6 of supplements and 10 boards).

Inspired by the Encyclopedia of Diderot and d'Alembert, it manifests the will to give it a European scale, to review the theoretical foundations and significantly expand the scope of knowledge.

To this end, Fortunato Bartolomeo De Felice, an Italian scientist based in Yverdon, Switzerland, gathered around him a team of over thirty European collaborators (there are among the authors identified fifteen Swiss twelve French, three Germans, an Italian , an Irishman). Around a core group of collaborators Swiss Romand (De Felice himself pastors Mingard Gabriel, Alexander and Caesar Chavannes Elie Bertrand), we find among others Jean-Henri Andrié (over 4,200 items of Geography), Jacques-Antoine Henry Deleuze (1030 records of botanical and natural history) and Jean Henri Samuel of Formey, permanent secretary of the Berlin Academy.


There is a copy at Google Books.


A printed copy at Amazon.com:

Encyclopedie Ou Dictionnaire Universel Raisonne V37: Des Connoissances Humaines (1774) (French Edition)














The book is mentioned in Histoire de la science. Here is a partial translation"

A second major change in the movement of the Enlightenment from the last century originated in France, with encyclopedias. This intellectual movement argues that architecture is a scientific and moral knowledge. The philosopher Denis Diderot and the mathematician d'Alembert in 1751 published the Encyclopedia or dictionary of the sciences, arts and crafts that can take on the state of knowledge at the time. Encyclopedia becomes a hymn to scientific progress.


Laocoon from the Encyclopedia.

Laocoon from Audran's book.


Hagesandros, Polydoros, and Athanadoros of Rhodes. Laocoön and His Sons perhaps the original of the 2nd or 1st century BCE or a Roman copy of the 1st century CE. Musei Vaticani, Museo Pio Clementino, Cortile Ottagono, Rome.

Some of the plates in the book seem to be derived from Girard Audran's Les Proportions du Corps Humain, Mesurees sur les plus belles Figures de l'Antiquite. Here is a post on the book. Les Proportions du Corps Human, Mesurees sur les plus belles Figures de l’Antiquite



Wednesday, November 4, 2009

William Reginald Watkins - Figure Paintings

Seated nude.

Standing nude.

I mentioned this artist before. Now all the remaining paintings are listed for sale on Ebay.

Click here to see the paintings for sale on Ebay.





A blog dedicated to his work is wrwatkins.com. The blog includes comparison of the paintings and original photographs of models the Watkins made in producing his work, as well as newspaper clippings and source material from his career.



Seated nude.
Seated nude.










Seated nude.


See the other post Water Color Figure Painting.

Standing nude.
Standing nude.











Related books from Amazon.com:


A Masterclass in Drawing and Painting the Human Figure: A practical guide to depicting the human form in any medium (Masterclass in Drawing/Paintng)


John Currin



Painting People: Figure Painting Today

Another post with more pictures.






Standing nude.
Seated nude.

Seated nude.

Seated nude.











Reclining nude.






















Sunday, November 1, 2009

William Rimmer's Art Anatomy



William Rimmer's Art Anatomy was another book of human anatomy written and drawn by an artist. Like Gottfried Schadow he distilled his knowledge of the human form into a series of 81 plates which the art student could study.

From the publisher's notes:

"The book contains nearly nine hundred drawings, illustrating in the fullest manner the ethnological, bony, anatomical, and artistic construction, movement (both simple and composite), and purposes of the human form, of both sexes and all ages, as well as the expression of the passions, will full explanatory text on the same page with the drawings. The drawings are for the most part in outline, and are made with great firmness and beauty. Many of the figures are statues in their conception. There is one full-page composition, entitled the Call to Arms. The "Art Anatomy" is the most perfect compendium of pictorial and artistic knowledge on this subject that I have ever seen, and without doubt unique."

"It has been said that William Rimmer's reputation rests most soundly upon his art anatomy. I believe there can be no disputing this. In the plates of his anatomical drawings we find nearly 900 drawings, not notes or sketches, but master products of a pencil craftsman and works of art of the first order. He begins with the skull; the first chart contains nine drawings, each illustrating a different aspect of the head, beginning with its basic structure, and in the last drawing showing muscular attachments. From this he carries the student through a most exhaustive study of the human head—unquestionably the most marvelous of all created things. Of the eighty-one charts, thirty-one are given to this study of the head, physically, artistically, and psychologically. He deals with primitive and highly developed forms, comparing and emphasizing the characteristics that civilization retains and those called elemental.

"This thoroughness one finds in all Rimmer's activities. A wonderful mind, wonderful visualization, and an imagination which contemplated all that was worth while or great in nature and art."


From Nineteenth Century Art Worldwide, Life Drawing from Ape to Human: Charles Darwin's Theories of Evolution and William Rimmer's Art Anatomy by Elliott Bostwick Davis.

Excerpts from Art Anatomy by William Rimmer at Scott-Eaton.com.


From the Literary Digest, Volume 70:

OUR PROPHET UNHONORED IN ART

A PROPHET IS NOT THE ONLY ONE who may be without honor in his own country. So may an artist and sculptor be unhonored and unsung, even tho, in the words of Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor, he be "the superior of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo in the delineation of various forms of art anatomy." Dr. William Rimmer, of Boston, who died in 1879, is the artist of whom Mr. Borglum writes so enthusiastically under the above title in the New York Evening Post. "In sculpture he worked more like Rodin at Rodin's best than any man in modern times," we are told. "Rimmer probably never heard of Rodin; it appears that he never went abroad, yet it is curious that he dealt with form with that strange, intense, plastic quality and that mastery of structural modeling which we see only in Rodin and one or two of his greatest contemporaries." Continues Sculptor Borglum of Sculptor Rimmer:

"How such a force could have lived in New England and thought, talked, modeled, and painted as he did for a long lifetime (in the memory of many still alive) without recognition is utterly incomprehensible. In so far as his great ability and his great productions affected the civilization of his environment, he might as well have been in Greenland. The truth is that Rimmer was not seen, not understood, because there was no one to understand him.

"What seems more remarkable still is that he is yet unknown. Artists do not know him. Recently at a little dinner I referred to him. My fellow guests were among the ablest of our painters and sculptors. Only one out of six had even heard of him. He is unknown in the schools. I did not learn of him through the regular art channels. I found his book of drawings in the possession of an American lady of the generation of Rimmer. I borrowed it. I lost all interest in the world for a week after my discovery, and grew angry and despaired over a world that knew nothing of it. Later I found that Truman Bartlett had written his life, and that the cellar of the Boston Museum had long been the vault wherein many of his fragments were neglected or lost." ,

In the sixties and seventies Dr. Rimmer was known in Boston art circles as a remarkable lecturer on art anatomy, Mr. Bartlett says in his bock, as the sculptor of several statues and busts, and as a man who had painted much without establishing a reputation as a painter. Yet,-Mr. Borglum assures us, "I have seen nothing in the records of art by the great Italian masters (excepting a few works of Da Vinci) that is comparable with Dr. Rimrner's drawings as studies not only of anatomy but of character." This modern sculptor then goes on:

"Unless it be a few of Holbein's and one or two I have seen by Velasquez, there are no drawings extant of the Renaissance, whether in France, Italy, Spain, England, or Holland, that can compare with some ninety pages of work which this remarkable man produced at the request of Mrs. W. A. Tappan, a lady who attended his lectures.....

"The story runs that this benefactress of humanity asked Dr. Rimmer if ho could not or would not make some of these drawings permanent so that the world might have them. He said that he would be glad to do it. She told him that she had a couple of thousand dollars she did not need, and asked him to take the money and do as much as he felt would be right for such a sum. With it he produced these ninety-odd pages, all of which are masterpieces for what they illustrate as well as works of art in character of line and general rendering. Half of them, at least, excel any drawings extant in pure beauty and as masterful demonstrations of knowledge of the human figure. They have a character of truth without exaggeration that is not unlike the Greek. The man is inspired by the same beauty and drama as the Italian Angelo, and in his drawings of hands and feet we feel the influence of the Renaissance masters, but in the form and structure of the figure and its proportion he is Greek."


From Ptak Science Notes, Dadaist Images in 19th Century Prints: William Rimmer's Artistic Anatomy, 1877

Conscience Continuum Blog.

ART: WILLIAM RIMMER WORKS ON EXHIBITION - The New York Times Review

ArtMagick Biography.

EVENING OR THE FALL OF DAY and FLIGHT AND PURSUIT
by William Rimmer (1816 — 1879) - Mindworkshop.com a post written by William Rimmer's great-great-great nephew.


Art Anatomy

Art anatomy original edition.

Art Anatomy board edition.

From The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, Volume 25:

Dr. RlMMER is one of the many figures in American art that fill one with uneasiness. The artistic genius in this country, until recently, has had no place. In other circumstances Rimmer might have achieved more satisfactory results ; here everything was against him, though perhaps nothing was so much against him as a disquiet and pride inherited from a father who believed himself a prince by birth, and his own inherent lack of patience and humble teachableness. He had a strong artistic temperament, but was thorough in nothing except anatomy. In that he was an excellent theoretic teacher, though he always disapproved of dissection for art-students, and, in explaining the most difficult parts of interior anatomy, would use the blackboard only.

Rimmer made his strongest impression not in his studied designs, pictures, and modelings, but at the blackboard. He had a most facile pencil, and would improvise on the blackboard as a musician does on the key-board, producing varied and beautiful harmonies of line. He was eminently a draughtsman, caring little for the illusion which a picture-maker is apt to cherish. He was totally ignorant of color, and took very uncertain interest in form as such ; but line as a rapid means of expressing a situation, an idea, a passion, was always at his own command, and strongly moved him in such men as Rembrandt and Michael Angelo. His enormous egotism not only prevented him from understanding and learning from his immediate contemporaries, but kept him from acknowledging indebtedness to an older artist like Allston (whom he was doubtless affected by), or to a modern master like Blake, who also evidently had a decided effect upon his thought.


Atlantic Monthly. Volume 74, Books on Architecture and Art.

Saturday, October 31, 2009

1762 Drawing Book - The artist's vade-mecum: Being the Whole Art of Drawing

How to draw the head in perspective.
Proportions of the head.


The artist's vade-mecum: being the whole art of drawing, taught in a new work, elegantly engraved on one hundred folio copper-plates, To which is prefixed, an essay on drawing.

R. SAYERS, AT THE GOLDEN BUCK, IN FLEET STREET, MDCCLXII.

Click here to see the 1762 prints for sale on Ebay.

Vade-mecum means a book for ready reference. This book is a compilation of prints designed for the student of art.

How to draw the nose, eyes and mouth.

How to draw the nose and eyes.








How to draw eyes.







The folio was influential to other publishers of drawing instruction books including Chapman's American Drawing Book.

How to draw hands and arms.
How to draw the hand holding objects.








How to draw clasping hands.

How to draw feet.









How to draw feet.
How to draw the arm.












How to draw feet.

How to draw the leg.












How to draw feet and legs.

How to draw hands.












How to draw the arm and hand.


How to draw hands.

Harold Cazneaux - Australian Photographer


These photographs of a figure drawing class were probably taken at the Julian Ashton School in the 1920s.

A copy of the first is for sale at the Josef Lebovic Gallery.

Here is a sampling of his photographs from news.com.au.

Article from vizwiki.com.




Books at Amazon.com

Harold Cazneaux: The quiet observer

Cazneaux

Philip Geeves presents Cazneaux's Sydney, 1904-1934

Harold Cazneaux (Artist in Photography)

Books by Harold Cazneaux including out of print books.

Books about modelling for art.

Live Nude Girl: My Life as an Object

Modeling Life: Art Models Speak About Nudity, Sexuality, And the Creative Process


The Artist's Model: From Etty to Spencer


Artists and Models (Pocket Penguins 70's)


Kiki's Paris: Artist and Lovers 1900-1930











The Invention of the Model: Artists and Models in Paris, 1830-1870


Rollover, Mona Lisa!: How Anyone Can Model for Artists

The sculptor’s education in drawings and photography

An exhibition at the Leeds Museums and Galleries explores how scultptors have been taught to see in three dimensions.

The show runs from October 10th, 2009 to October 10th, 2010 at the Henry Moore Institute in Henry Moore Institute, 74 The Headrow, Leeds LS1 3AH, United Kingdom.

For other posts about drawing from casts see:

How to Draw - drawing from Casts.

Or all the posts on the subject drawing from casts.

An ebook which has examples of drawing from casts is The Figure in Repose at Figure-Drawings.com.




Cast Drawing Using the Sight-Size Approach at Amazon.com.

Lessons on Shading

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Abraham Bloemaert - Drawing Book



Abraham Bloemaert was a 16th Century Dutch mannerist painter and printmaker.

One of his projects was an instruction book which consisted of 173 plates including some which were duplicates that were hand sepia colored.

A copy of Oorspronkelyk en Vermaard Konstryk Tekenboek van Abraham Bloemaart is available at Abebooks.com

Here is a description from the seller:

Ottens edition, printed from the original plates mostly engraved by Frederik Bloemaart ca. 1650, of Abraham Bloemaart's classic engraved drawing book, first published by the artist himself ca. 1650 as Artis Apellae liber with only 100 or 120 plates. The first two parts show mostly detail drawings of heads, hands, arms, feet, legs, etc., in a wide variety of positions and covering males and females of all ages. Parts 3 and 4 show mostly full figures, both nude and in a variety of clothing, part 5 shows only putti, part 6 mostly full figures, part 7 completed scenes and part 8 animals. The drawings were intended as models for students or apprentices in art or engraving.


Biography from the Getty Museum.

Another biography from Mystudios.com
.



A sheet of drawing studies from the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam.

Abraham Bloemaert (1566-1651): Studien zur Utrechter Malerei um 1620 (German Edition)

Abraham Bloemaert (1566-1651) and his time

The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Beauty an analysis and classification of Beauty in Woman




An interesting book because it describes 19th century ideals of beauty was written by Alexander Walker in 1840, Beauty Illustrated Chiefly by an Analysis and Classification of Beauty in Woman.

Beauty; Illustrated Chiefly by an Analysis and Classification of Beauty in Woman Preceded by a Critical View of the General Hypotheses Respecting Beauty, by Hume, Hogarth, Burke, Knight, Alison, &c. And Followed by A Similar View of the Hypotheses of Beauty in Sculpture and Painting, by Leonardo da Vinci, Winckelmann, Mengs, Bossi, &c.

By Alexander Walker, Author of "Physiognomy Founded on Physiology," the Nervous System," &c.

Illustrated by 24 Steel Engravings from Drawings from Life, by Henry Howard, Professor of Painting to the Royal Academy.

From the book:

There is perhaps no subject more universally or more deeply interesting than that which is the chief subject of the present work. Yet no book, even pretending to science or accuracy, has hitherto appeared upon it. The forms and proportions of animals—as of the horse and the dog—have been examined in a hundred volumes : not one has been devoted to woman, on whose physical and moral qualities the happiness of individuals, and the perpetual improvement of the human race, are dependant.

The cause of this has been, probably, the neglect on the part of individuals, to combine anatomical and physiological knowledge with the critical observation of the external forms of woman; and, perhaps, some repugnance to anthropological knowledge on the part of the public. The last obstacle, if ever it existed, is now gone by, as many circumstances show; and it will be the business of the author, in this work, to endeavor to obviate the former.

The present work, beside giving new views of the theory of beauty, and of its application to the arts, presents an analysis and classification of beauty in woman. A subsequent work will apply the principles here established to intermarriages and .crossings among mankind, and will explain their results in relation to the happiness of individuals, and to the beauty and the freedom from insanity of their offspring. A final work will examine the relations of woman in society, will expose the extravagant hypothesis of writers on this subject who have been ignorant of anthropology, and will describe the reforms which the common interests of mankind demand in this respect.


An online version is available at Google Books.


Click here to see the book for sale on Ebay.


Wikipedia article.

More posts on the Greek ideal of beauty.











BEAUTY; ILLUSTRATED CHIEFLY BY AN ANALYSIS AND CLASSIFICATION OF BEAUTY IN WOMAN



Beauty; Illustrated Chiefly By an Analysis and Classification of Beauty in Women. Preceded By a Critical View of the General Hypothesis Respecting Beauty, By Hume, Hogarth, Burke, Knight, Alison, Etc., and Followed By ...

Beauty, Illustrated By an Analysis and Classification of Beauty in Woman, with...


Beauty Analysis and Classification of Beauty in Woman

Related book for sale on Ebay.

A contemporary review from The Literary Gazette.

Beauty ; illustrated chiefly by an Analysis and Classification of Beauty in Woman. By Alexander Walker, Author of " Physiognomy founded on Physiology," " The Nervous System," &c. Illustrated by Draw, ings from Life, by Henry Howard, Professor of Painting to the Royal Academy; drawn on stone, by M. Oaticl and R. J. Lane, A.R.A. 8vo. pp. 395. London, 183G. Effingham Wilson. If ever writer chose an attractive theme, Mr. Walker is certainly that writer. " There Is, perhaps, no subject," he observes, In his Intro, auction, " more universally or more deeply interesting than that which is the chief subject of the present work. Yet no book, even pretending to science or accuracy, has hitherto appeared upon it. The forms and proportions of animals —as of the horse and of the dog, have been examined in a hundred volumes. Not one has been devoted to woman, on whose physical and moral qualities the happiness of individuals and the perpetual improvement of the human race are dependent. The cause of this has been, probably, the neglect, on the part of Individuals, to combine anatomical and physiological knowledge with the critical observation of the ex. ternal forms of woman ; and, perhaps, some repugnance to anthropological knowledge on the part of the public. The last obstacle, if ever it existed, is now gone by, as many circumstances shew ; and it will be the business of the author, in this work, to endeavour to obviate the former. The present work, be. sides giving new views of the theory of beauty, and of its application to the arts, presents at analysis and classification of beauty in woman A subsequent work will apply the principles here established to intermarriages and crossings among mankind, and will explain their results in relation to the happiness of individuals, anc to the beauty and the freedom from insanity of their offspring. A final work will examine the relations of woman in society, will expose the extravagant hypotheses of writers on this subject who have been ignorant of anthropology, and will describe the reforms which the common interests of mankind demand in this respect."

The earlier chapters of the volume are devoted, principally, to disquisitions on the nature nf beauty generally ; on the standard of taste in beauty ; on the elements of beauty — in inanimate being«, in living beings, in thmkinf beings ; on the elements of beauty as employee in objects of art ; on the beauty of useful, о ornamental, and of intellectual objects.

" I have shewn," says Mr. Walker, in the ' (inclusion of this part of his work, " that there exist elements of beauty equally invariable in themselves, and in the kind of effect they produce upon the mind ; that these elements are modified, varied, and complicated, as we advance from the most simple to the most complex class of natural beings, or of the arts which relate to these respectively ; that the elements of beauty in inanimate beings consist n the simplicity, regularity, uniformity, proportion, order, A.c., of those geometrical forms which are so intimately connected with mere existence ; that the elements of beauty in living wings, consist in adding to the preceding the delicacy, bending, variety, contrast, &c., which are connected with growth and reproduction ; that the elements of beauty in thinking beings consist in adding to the preceding the sym. metry, proportion, &c., which are connected with fitness for sense, thought, and motion; that the elements of beauty in the objects of useful art, consist in the same simplicity, rerularity, uniformity, proportion, order, Ac, of geometrical forms which belong to Inanimate leings; that the element) of beauty in the objects of orniimental art consist in the same delicacy, bending, variety, contrast, &c., which belong to living beings ; and that the elements of beauty in the objects of intellectual art consist in thinking forms, In gesture, sculpture, and painting, or In functions of mind actually exercised, In oratory, poetry, and music."

The author then proceeds to the main object which he has in view ; namely, to treat of the causes and the standard of beauty In woman. He divides female beauty into three species,— the beauty of the locomotive system, the beauty of the nutritive or vital system, and the beauty of the thinking system; and describes the peculiar qualities which distinguish each. The subject is a delicate one. It would be impos. sible (especially in the absence of all graphic illustrations) to render it intelligible without quotations, the length of which Is not our only reason for preferring to refer our readers to the volume itself, in which they will find a vast fund of original, profound, acute, curious, and amusing observation; highly interesting to all, but especially to the connoisseur and the artist.

Chapters on the Greek Ideal Beauty, on the Ideal of Female Beauty, and on the Defects of Beauty, conclude the work.

The plates are twenty-two in number. Some of them are rather severely criticised by Mr. Walker himself.

How Is it that a man of the author's evident taste and judgment could permit himself to deform his book by the occasional introduction of politics ?

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Tabulæ Anatomicæ 1714 by Batholomaeus Eustachius


Two versions of the Tabulæ Anatomicæ 1714 by Batholomaeus Eustachius are available on Ebay.

From Wikipedia:
First published in 1714 by G. M. Lancisi, and again in 1744 by Cajetan Petrioli, and again in 1744 by Bernhard Siegfried Albinus, and subsequently at Bonn in 1790, the engravings show that Eustachius had dissected with the greatest care and diligence, and taken the utmost pains to give just views of the shape, size and relative position of the organs of the human body. The fact that his book became a bestseller more than a century after his death shows the extent of the religious restrictions on anatomists all through the Renaissance.


Click here to see the 1740 folio for sale on Ebay.

Click here to see the 1975 Medicina Rara reprint for sale on Ebay.



Another edition is for sale at Amazon.com
Tabulae Anatomicae