Art Around the Web -- Historical Anatomies -- by Florida Fine Art Blog

Historical Anatomies of the Web

I found a great website of historical anatomy drawings.  The two pictured above are by William Cheselden and were published in 1733.  The playfulness of both poses engaged me.  Every artist needs reference material and this website has collected studies of the human body through out the centuries.    

Historical Anatomies on the Web is a digital project designed to give the user access to high quality images from important anatomical atlases in The U.S. National Library of Medicine's collection.

The project offers selected images from the National Library of Medicine's atlas collection, not the entire books, with an emphasis on images and not texts. Atlases and images are selected primarily for their historical and artistic significance, with priority placed upon the earliest and/or the best edition of a work in NLM's possession.

The website is run by U.S. National Library of Medicine and has thousands of images.  Every artist needs reference material and this site has nice large scale  images that are viewable in jpeg forrmat or in a zoomable form.  You can scroll through the list of scanned titles, which are arranged alphabetically by author.

From the website;  In order to produce the highest quality images, the pages of the atlases have been scanned directly at a high resolution. Large JPEG files are offered for downloading, allowing users to employ them in any number of projects, including close examination and comparisons, publications, presentations, and artwork. The images are presented in a format that allows zooming and panning in high magnification. High-resolution TIFF files will be archived and made available to researchers. 

Each atlas listing is accompanied by a brief historical discussion of the work, its author, the artists, and the illustration technique. A bibliographical description is also included, so that users will know which edition was scanned and if there are any characteristics special to the Library's copy.

All of the scanned works are in the public domain. The National Library of Medicine does not charge for the use of its images or require requests for permission. However, we ask that published images include the credit line "Courtesy of the National Library of Medicine." 

Historical Anatomies of the Web

Dream Anatomy