MUSCULAR POWER. 



101 



by the simpler properties of matter, and allow us a clearer 

 insight into the wonderful art which has been exerted in 

 their accomplishment. 



Muscles, during their contraction, increase in thickness 

 in the same proportion as they diminish in length. "^ It is on 

 this account, more especially, that a knowledge of anatomy 



37 



38 



43 



40 



is so necessary to the painter and the sculptor. In every 

 movement and attitude of the body, some particular sets of 

 muscles are in action, and consequently tense and prominent 

 while others are relaxed and flattened; differences which it 

 is requisite that the artist should faithfully express, in order 

 to give a correct representation of the living fio-ure. 



The dilatation of the muscular fibres in thickness, which 

 accompanies their contraction in length, would, if these 

 fibres had been loose and unconnected, have occasioned too 

 great a separation and displacement, and have impeded their 

 co-operation in one common effect. Nature has guarded 

 against this evil by collecting a certain number of the ele- 

 mentary fibrils, and tying them together with threads of 

 cellular substance; thus forming them into a larger fibre; and 

 again packing a number of these fibres into larger bundles: 

 always surrounding each packet with a web of cellular tis- 



* This is illustrated by the annexed figures, 37 and 38, the former show- 

 ing tlie relaxed and elongated, and the latter the contracted and swollen 

 state of the same muscle. 



