Drawing the Human Body: An Anatomical Guide

Civardi and Constance take two entirely different approaches to drawing the human form. Civardi's is a detailed, classical manual, informed by his study at the Faculty of Medicine, Milan, and his teaching of sculpture and drawing. He describes each part of the skeleton and each muscle, using frontal, lateral, and dorsal projections. Academic libraries will want this unless they already own Civardi's previous trilogy, Drawing Human Anatomy, Drawing the Female Nude, and Drawing the Male Nude (LJ 3/15/96). Constance's book is a more lively and accessible volume, progressing nicely from quick-pose sketches to more ambitious interpretations of both the character and the form of the person one is drawing. Constance covers a variety of media and explores light and shadow, clothing and drapery, and varying perspectives. Her use of cropping, pastels, collage, and monotypes attest to her preference for creative expression over accuracy. The result is an outstanding book for public libraries. For an advanced book appropriate for both academic and public libraries, see Robert Beverly Hale and Terence Coyle's Anatomy Lessons from the Great Masters (LJ 7/01).
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