Does what it says on the front cover. This is an excellent resource for the artist wishing to improve his or her understanding of human anatomy.

The introductory section defines the anatomical terms (ventral, medial, dorsal etc.) in an easy-to-understand manner, and illustrates how different joints function, before launching into the main content of the book wherein the body is examined first as a skeletal system, then the muscular. Each of these two major divisions is further broken down into regions (head, thorax, spine, arms, legs etc). A later section covers surface details and landmarks while another covers the very useful topic of proportions (essentially how any body proportion can be estimated based on using the head as a unit of measure).

The book is illustrated throughout with pencil drawings that not only illustrate the structures (such as you may find in other anatomy texts), but also shows how they move and articulate as the body adopts different positions. The illustrations also break down the forms into their distinctive shapes using wedges, cylinders, planes etc – something that greatly helps when attempting to draw these structure from various angles.

Further sections deal with facial expressions and how the body changes with age, gender and racial heritage (this latter part, while no less useful, does show the book’s age a little, in the use of terms that have fallen out of favour in recent times, but were no doubt commonplace in when it was first published in 1951 – nothing really offensive, just out-dated). There is also a section with black and white photos of male and female models which, obviously, contains nudity – while I and most other artists would have no issue with that, and indeed find them a useful resorce in themselves, it is worth mentioning in the interests of giving a full description.

Overall, an excellent resource for any artist (beginner or experienced) who wishes to gain a better understanding of human form, and thus seek to improve their ability to render it in their medium of choice. The illustrations are plentiful and clear, giving as much detail as is needed without overwhelming the reader in unnecessary information (although there are full lists of every muscle with their actions, origin and insertion points included for those who want it). If you don’t mind the content being fully black and white (and really, with most of the illustrations being line drawings, colour isn’t really needed here), then you won’t regret getting this book for your reference library.