The Human Figure (Dover Anatomy for Artists)

Excellent condition, new just as promised, the book arrived in just a matter of days from the day it shipped. Excellent service. I would rate a 5 star but my system wont allow it to submit with that. Guess there must always be room for improvement.

The last few pages mention differences between slender and well endowed figures, then further compares it to older figures regarding stance. It is difficult to digest for anyone who does not read on a regular basis.

Incredible! This book has a different book inside of it! The cover is one book and the inside is a book called " love and respect workbook" by dr Emerson eggerichs and fritz ridenour. Doesn't even appear to be from the same publisher . So weird.

I bought this book for a drawing class. The book has nice detailed drawings of most figure types, but the four female pages were removed from my used copy. Be selective of your seller. I sent an e-mail to the seller and no response. Otherwise, I recommend this book for learning to draw figures.

Disappointed to see the 1958 edition which looks nothing like the picture shown here. It smells so bad I cannot begin to tell you. The condition of the book is deplorable. The edition is so old it is outdated.

This book is still "standard issue " for masters like Nelson Shanks - and still in the store at the Art Students League in New York. Why? because its one of the best resources out there for people who want to become master artists - Books like "drawing on the right side of the brain' are great for people who want to learn how to draw. But becoming a master is something different (I am not belittling Drawing on the right side of the brain -its a great book) some people find its hard to believe that a cheap edition (and yes I wish the reproductions of the drawings were better) can provide as much 'knowledge' as a slick, more expensive book - its a longer harder path and more challenging - but follow the principles in this book , and copy the drawings (particularly on the head) and you'll be on your path to becoming a master drawer.

I have had this book almost since its first publication, and even today I find myself returning to it on occasion.
Broken down into seven chapters, it begins with "The Human Body", a three+ page written introduction to anatomy and movement. The next chapters are "The Head And Neck", "The Trunk", "The Arm", "The Hand", "The Hip And Leg" and finally "The Foot". Beginning with a few pages of text describing the form and function of the part in question, each chapter then follows the by-now-familiar route of showing the skeletal substructure, fleshed out with the muscles in plan and side views. Each chapter is rounded out with a number of small drawings showing movement and its effect on surface form and the consistency with which the male figure is depicted throughout is quite extraordinary, if a little idealised.
I would recommend "Drawing Human Anatomy" by Giovanni Civardi as the best stand-alone anatomy book for artists, however this is a solid reference and the beautiful style in which Rubins draws I still find inspirational after more than twenty years.
While aesthetically I find this title much more pleasing, Joseph Sheppard's "Anatomy: A Complete Guide for Artists" together with his other books "Drawing The Male Figure" and "Drawing The Female Figure" have proved more versatile on a problem-solving basis.
I am very pleased to see this back in print again and am sure it will find a new generation of fans.

Vanderpoel's "The Human Figure" seems to be considered a touchstone text in the world of figure drawing - indeed, several other books I use reference this one. From the illustrations in this book, there is little doubt that Vanderpoel was a tremendous talent and had much to teach us about how to render the figure. Unfortunately, I very much wish he hadn't written this book in this particular format. This was among the very first books I received when I began drawing and, while the few illustrations within serve as excellent examples to learn from obliquely, this book is long on written explanation and short on the kind of instruction one comes to expect from a drawing book - step-by-step insight accompanied by a good number of illustrations; drawing is, after all, a visual exercise. Now, for those of us who have had a little more experience under our belts, Vanderpoel may be a good text to return to. However, for those just starting out in drawing, someone the likes of Burne Hogarth or Bidgeman is better suited (their books are highly recommended).

For those needing a detailed description of what they are looking at, this is the book for you. I always got frustrated with books and classes that ask me to vaguely "study what I see" without giving me any explanation as to why they look the way they do.

With this book, you get that. And from that knowledge you start to grasp an understanding of how something will look in a different pose than the one you're studying. Knowing the Zygomatic Arch from your Iliac Crest is important, but knowing how they works is invaluable.

I recommend books like these, and only hope that ones for animals come out soon enough.

This book isn't exactly for beginners. There is a lot of text and it's hard to understand. It's easy to lose track of what the author is trying to say....As if they are trying to make the whole book sound extremely sophisticated. However, it does serve good as reference for a few minor things.

Nelson Shanks refers to the illustrations of this book as examples of simplifying the human form into patterns of light and dark. While the illustrations do accomplish this, the book is by no means a reference manual for rendering the human body. Also, most of the illustrations appear washed out in my copy of this book. If you are interested in beautiful examples of sensitive charcole renderings of the human figure, this book is outstanding. If you want a visual reference work on the under-structures of the human form, you can find better books than this one.
For anatomical reference, I highly recommend: "Bridgman's Complete Guide to Drawing From Life" by George B. Bridgman, and "The Human Figure: An Anatomy for Artists" by David K. Rubins.

This book is excellent for beginners I think. For more advanced artist it must be very good book for practice. Human figure drawing is broke down in couple parts - starts with eyes and all other facial features, than continues with torso, arms, legs and hands. Finally there are nice drawings of complete figure. This book will help you to understand how the face and body are constructed. I gave this book 5 stars because of the value of the information, but it has one disadvantage - pictures look like 10-th copy of another copy. I would probably appreciate more bigger pictures too. There is a lot of text to read in this book.

I consider myself to be a pretty intelligent and patient reader and even I have to admit that the text is really difficult to read. The plates (illustrations), however, are outstanding. If you're advanced enough to be able to study and learn directly from drawings without the aid of much text then you should definitely pick up a copy of this book. I can't think of any other drawing books where you can learn as much for... $ The illustrations in the new Dover reprint actually lose a lot of quality compared to the orginal printing, so if possible try and find an older copy.

Clear drawings, well-written, relatively simple text, easy to follow.
Especially good for beginners in anatomy to augment Hale/Richer's Artistic
Anatomy (the text of which is more complex and harder to follow) and,
for ecorche, Goldfinger's Human Anatomy for Artists.

Great illustration. It can sometimes be very hard to read, but I've learned a lot of anatomy from it. I have a lot of anatomy books and this is by far the best for drawing. It gave it 4 out of 5 stars just based on the verbal content.

One of the finest books available on figure drawing, written by someone who could do it! His advice helps you look at the big picture, rather than getting lost in details. It requires some patience to read, but most worthwhile things do. A real gem!

I teach figure drawing and this guide has been most helpful. Great visual learning guide to the human body and excellent illustrations including baby, and old guy. I use this book more than any other.

This book was recommeded by William Maughan in his book The Artist's Complete Guide to Drawing the Head. I thought Maughan's book was great and was hoping this would be more of the same. Unfortunately not. Essentially all this book is is a written discripion of various parts of the body, written in very arcane language, with a few pencil sketches of body parts. The descriptions of the body parts do not even refer to the sketches. Definately not for beginners and experienced artists should not waste their time trying to parse the erudite language of this book.

We purchased this for our daughter who is taking an art class. She liked having a variety of figures and body parts to study.

From a parents' perspective, most of the drawings were done in a manner that wasn't too explicit. There are a few that we would have preferred not having in the book, but generally most of depictions were appropriate for a high school art student.