Animal Anatomy Drawing Book Review: Cyclopedia Anatomicae by Gyorgy Feher, A Massive Anatomical Volume
Cyclopedia Anatomicae: A HUGE Volume Of Human and Animal Anatomy Drawings
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This book is one of four books that are my main library of anatomy-focused reference materials, and this post gives an overview with links to reviews for each book if you’d like to see more. Lanteri’s Modelling and Sculpting Animals book focuses mainly on sculpture, and is invaluable for 3D artists, but the other three (including this book) are geared more towards 2D, but can work for either 2D or 3D artworks.
Check Second Sale or Bookshop.org for this book at a discount!
With more than 1,500 images, this is by far the largest human and animal anatomy drawing book in my reference library! It has sections on movement patterns, tail placement and carriage of the horse, horse and rider drawings, antlers of different horned species, differing hoof and paw conformations, and so much more.
There are tips on drawing techniques, comparison photos between differing species, and much more. At over 600 pages, it’s a huge reference source with a lot to offer!
For the human form, there’s a section on drapery studies that’s incredibly useful, as well as muscle fiber types and images on the flexion patterns of the joints. There’s a decent section of drawing tips for the human face and proportions.
Animals included in this book are the horse, dog, cat, pig, ape sheep, bear, deer, cow, camel, and lion. At the end, there’s a 60 page comparative anatomy section that details the similarities and differences between species.
Images from Cyclopedia Anatomicae:
Animal Anatomy Drawing: My Favorite Part Of Cyclopedia Anatomicae:
My favorite part of this book has to be the movement patterns of the horse. There are drawings reminescent of Muybridge’s Horses And Other Animals In Motion, another useful book in my reference library – having these images portrayed in black and white drawings is invaluable for helping to decipher the specific anatomical landscapes during each phase of movement.
The horse is portrayed rearing, rolling, jumping, walking, galloping, and more – and there’s a section on different facial expressions and movements as well.
Comparison to Other Animal Anatomy Drawing Books In My Library:
This is a HUGE book, that has interesting poses and angles not found in the other animal anatomy drawing books I’ve reviewed so far. There are some full body views, but most images are broken up into quadrants with some focus on individual musculature like the Animal Anatomy for Artists by Goldfinger book (see my review here). This book has a lot of drawings for the human form, so if you mostly work with the human form then this book will have more useful information for you.
This book has more barnyard-type animals, including pigs and sheep, and has some animals that aren’t covered in my other books including apes and camels – both the Ellenberger (see my review) and Goldfinger books have monkeys, but no apes.
There’s sections on small facial details, such as eyes and ears, that are incredibly useful. I feel that Ellenberger’s eye images are much crisper though, and are more useful than the eye images in Cyclopedia Anatomicae.
Compared to Goldfinger’s book with individual muscles, this book has individual bone structures. So again, these books are incredibly complementary, which is why they’ve all found a place in my reference library!
My Overall Rating:
This book was discontinued, but can sometimes be found used at Second Sale, Bookshop.org, or other second hand book retailers. You can also find tons of newer art books, including animal anatomy drawing books, at Blick Art Materials.
