Anatomy of Animals (Ernest E. Thompson)

Anatomy of Animals
Ernest E. Thompson
Bracken Books
Nonfiction, Art
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: Any artist who wishes to accurately portray animals cannot ignore the importance of anatomy studies. Thompson includes anatomy sketches of many exemplar species, plus extensive written notes on proportions, significant veins, hair tracts, and more.

REVIEW: Another budget find from Half Price Books... First published in 1896, Thompson's book claims to be the first "modern" work of animal anatomy geared for artists. Though the writing style reads awkwardly today, it still has much to offer. Many species are covered via black and white image plates, often in numerous dissection views. He also has some good references on bird feather tracts. I wish the plates had been matched up with the text that discussed them, instead of being relegated to the last half of the book. The text also discusses many more animals than the plates cover, often as dry charts of proportions that gave no sense of how the animal actually looked. (The nineteenth-century origins come through strongly here, as not only are several creatures referred to by obsolete or archaic names, but almost all of these proportion charts come from animals shot in the name of science.) Overall, I found it educational, with information I haven't seen covered in my other animal art books.