Product Description

From the author of the classic Human Anatomy for Artists comes this user-friendly reference guide featuring over five hundred original drawings and over seventy photographs. Designed for painters, sculptors, and illustrators who use animal imagery in their work, Animal Anatomy for Artists offers thorough, in-depth information about the most commonly depicted animals, presented in a logical and easily understood format for artists--whether beginner or accomplished professional. The book focuses on the forms created by muscles and bones, giving artists a crucial three-dimensional understanding of the final, complex outer surface of the animal. Goldfinger not only covers the anatomy of the more common animals, such as the horse, dog, cat, cow, pig, squirrel, and rabbit, but also the anatomy of numerous wild species, including the lion, giraffe, deer, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, elephant, gorilla, sea lion, and bear. Included are drawings of skeletons and how they move at the joints, individual muscles showing their attachments on the skeleton, muscles of the entire animal, cross sections, photographs of live animals, and silhouettes of related animals comparing their shapes and proportions. He offers a new and innovative section on the basic body plan of four-legged animals, giving the reader a crucial conceptual understanding of overall animal structure to which the details of individual animals can then be applied. The chapter on birds covers the skeleton, muscles and feather patterns. The appendix presents photographs of skulls with magnificent horns and antlers and a section on major surface veins. Incredibly thorough, packed with essential information, Animal Anatomy for Artists is a definitive reference work, an essential book for everyone who depicts animals in their art.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #80011 in Books
• Published on: 2004-11-15
• Original language: German
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

From Booklist
Goldfinger, author of Human Anatomy for Artists (1991), stresses that bodies have specific volumes created by anatomical structures, and he reveals how the interrelationship of muscles and bones determines shape and proportion. His straightforward guide starts with animal classification and a listing of nonmedical terminology and then explicates the "basic body plan." Detailed line drawings, black-and-white photographs, and silhouettes, as well as explanations of skeletons, emphasize the functions of various body portions such as lower leg and shoulder joint, and Goldfinger thoroughly depicts individual muscles before progressing to elaborate side views and cross sections of complete anatomies. Feathers, horns, and antlers are treated separately with both diagrams and photos before the text concludes with a brief overview of the venous system. Many will find especially useful the extensive, multimedia, annotated bibliography. This technical treasure is sure to find an audience among artists and serious animal enthusiasts alike. Whitney Scott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"The definitive reference guide on the subject."--American Artist
"This technical treasure is sure to find an audience among artists and serious animal enthusiasts alike."--Booklist
"An excellent tool for beginner or master painter, sculptor, or illustrator."--Art Times
"The work of artist Eliot Goldfinger combines scientific rigor with aesthetic discrimination. In its wide scope and copious detail, his new book on animal anatomy is an invaluable reference for anyone intent on the vivid depiction of animal life, including painters, sculptors and animators. Artistic anatomy has fallen on hard times in recent years; no one has done more to bring it out of the doldrums--with this book and its predecessor on human anatomy--than Eliot Goldfinger."--Gary Faigin, Artist; Co-founder and Artistic Director of the Seattle Academy of fine Arts; Instructor of anatomy, painting and drawing; Author of The Artist's Complete Guide to Facial Expression
"Animal Anatomy for Artists is an essential reference for any artist working with animals. It provides remarkably extensive material on the horse, cow, lion, and dog, and strong basic material on numerous other species, domestic and exotic. Goldfinger presents material that is not available in any other anatomy book in print. I, and many of my colleagues familiar with his excellent and important text, Human Anatomy for Artists, are fortunate to have this book for our use as well as that of our students. Animal Anatomy for Artists is an exciting and major addition to the literature of art education."--David Klass, Artist; Instructor in animal and human anatomy at the New York Academy of Art in New York City and the Loveland Academy of Fine Arts in Loveland, Colorado
"While this book is indeed useful to artists, Animal Anatomy for Artists is so much more than an anatomy reference book--it is Eliot Goldfinger's graphic celebration of the wonders and intricacies of animal anatomy, a visual testimony to his consummate skill as an anatomist and an artist. To appreciate the way the animals are put together, use this book, and along the way, marvel at the depth and range of its author."--Richard Ellis, Natural history painter and writer; Author and illustrator of Great White Shark, Aquagenesis, and The Empty Ocean

About the Author

Eliot Goldfinger is a renowned sculptor and anatomist. He developed the anatomy program at The New York Academy of Art and has been an instructor at The Art Students League in New York City. He is the author of Human Anatomy for Artists, the standard reference in the field.

Customer Reviews

Essential for Serious Animal Artists
Having loved Goldfinger's book on human anatomy for years, I purchased his book on animal anatomy as soon as I found out it was available. I was not disappointed. The word "essential" gets used a lot on this site and for that reason I hesitated to use it, but this book truly deserves it.

Ellenberger's book is, to my knowledge, the only one that even compares to this one. Goldfinger's illustrations are not as utterly gorgeous as Ellenberger's, but the are very fine nonetheless, and his conceptual approach is much, much clearer and richer. Also, the range of species covered is much greater. It even has a portion devoted to the artistic anatomy of rhinos (Rhinos even!).

In reading the reviews for his work on human anatomy, I noticed that a few reviewers called even that rather massive work insufficiently thorough. Truth is, of course, that no single book can possibly cover all that is useful and interesting about even human artistic anatomy, let alone the rest of the animal kingdom. This book does a better job than any I'm aware of, and also contains an excellent bibliography for further research.

The most important thing in learning to draw animals well is lots of time in the studio combined with even more time sketching in the field. Good references are a very close second, however, and I can think of no better reference than this.

Very Informative
This is a very detailed book and a must have for those that need to know more about animal anatomy. This book does layout the skeletal and muscular design of the used animals very well. One thing that it does not give you is a detailed description of exactly how the joints move or muscles work. But overall a must have if you are doing an animal study for sculpture or 3-d modeling.

Features over 500 original drawings and over 70 photos
Artists who plan on focusing on animals had better pick up a copy of Animal Anatomy For Artists: The Elements Of Form: a virtual 'Bible' of animal anatomy, is features over five hundred original drawings and over seventy photos which painters, sculptors, and illustrators can use to understand the underlying anatomy of a range of common and wild animals. Forms created by muscles and bones provide artists with a three-dimensional figure of the final surface of the animal, while Goldfinger provides discussions of how each piece of animal anatomy interacts with another.