Human Anatomy (From the Renaissance to the Digital Age)

Human Anatomy (From the Renaissance to the Digital Age), by Benjamin A. Rifkin & Michael J Ackerman

This book combines brief biographies of 20 or so important anatomists from the last 500 years with beautiful reproductions of their work.

It’s fascinating on several levels. Obviously, it traces the development of anatomical knowledge over the centuries. In today’s information-rich world, where it seems we can find almost anything online in a matter of seconds, it was interesting to be reminded of how difficult it was to gain that knowledge. It was also interesting to see the importance of religious references in some of the works (like Gamelin’s rather startled looking skeleton with the last trumpet blasting a couple of feet from his skull, and the caption Surgite mortui venite ad Judicuim – Arise, dead one and come to Judgement). And finally, I enjoyed the contrast of the delicate hatching with the dismembered bodies it portrays. For me, the reproduced drawings will provide lots of models to practice drawing the skeleton in different poses.

If you’re interested in historical anatomical art, you’ll also love the U.S. National Library of Medicine’s Historical Anatomies on the Web, as well as the site of their former Dream Anatomy exhibit.

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