Discover the inner workings of an animal's anatomy with this beautiful guide, featuring historical illustrations and lyrical descriptions of the animal body.
Have you ever wondered what beats beneath an animal's skin? Well, you wouldn't be the first one. The study of comparative anatomy has led to some of the most striking images ever created. For two-and-a-half thousand years, the animal body has been picked apart to drive arguments in natural philosophy, to reinforce dogma, to remind us of death, to horrify, educate and enthral.
This book recounts the intertwined intellectual and artistic journeys of comparative anatomy from antiquity to the present day. Rather than offering an exhaustive listing, it focuses on the distinctive artistic flavours of five great phases of anatomical endeavour. Horses opened like books, the leer of a shark's eye, the humming loom of the brain - all life is here, dissected and depicted.
Lyrically written and accompanied by captivating illustrations from history's animal anatomists, this is an ideal read for designers, art lovers and scientists alike.
Introduction
Chapter 1: Before the Press
From Antiquity to the Renaissance
Leonardo da Vinci: Animal as Machine
Albrecht Dürer: The Wonderful Line
Chapter 2: The Horse Stripped Bare
Cutting and Cataloguing: 16th-19th centuries
Carlo Ruini: Anatomia del Cavallo
George Stubbs: The Anatomy of the Horse
Chapter 3: Bewildering Variety
A Pictorial Menagerie: 16th-19th centuries
Volcher Coiter: De Partibus Similaribus Humani Corporis
Georges Cuvier: Le Règne Animal
Alfred Brehm: Tierleben
Richard Owen: The Anatomy of Vertebrates
Chapter 4: Embryos and Ancestors
Evolution and Development in the 19th century
Ernst Haeckel: Development of the Embryo, Development of the Race
Edweard Muybridge: Animal Locomotion
Santiago Ramón y Cajal: Textura del Sistema Nervioso del Hombre y de los Vertebrados
Chapter 5: Onwards, Outwards, Inwards
The Wonders of Life since 1900
D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson: On Growth and Form
Index
Credits