The Revival of an Influential Drawing Course

From its initial publication in 1868 to 1873 until the first decades of the 20th century, the three-part drawing course formulated by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824—1904) and Charles Bargue (1826/27—1883) was one of the most influential art-education programs in the world. From Paris to London to New York, most major museums and art schools owned a complete set of the 197 loose-leaf lithographs and expected students to copy them. Diego Rivera, Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh and hundreds of other art students spent weeks and months making exact copies of the lithographs of plaster casts, great master drawings, and life drawings. Van Gogh was so convinced of the benefits of following the course that he completed at least three separate sets after the 60 plates in Course III.

But despite the importance of the Cours de Dessin, as it was titled, the educational program was supplanted by free, less rigorous methods as Modern art became the dominant international movement. By the 1950s, the academic method of drawing plaster casts and copying works of art, as well as spending days and weeks working directly from live models, was so discredited that sets of the Bargue lithographs were seldom used by students. Only a handful of complete sets remained when, in 1983, art historian Gerald M. Ackerman began searching for the plates to republish them in book form.

Now, after 20 years of research, study, and writing, Ackerman has published a book containing all the Bargue lithographs and instructions on how to use them. Concurrently, the Dahesh Museum of Art, in New York City, has mounted an exhibition of the original plates. Photographs of Van Gogh and Picasso copies, as well as drawings and paintings by Bargue, supplement the exhibition.

Gérôme and Bargue originally conceived the drawing course as a way of addressing what they believed was a serious lack of skill and taste among students of design and the decorative arts. Gérôme, his colleagues, and his students began making drawings of plaster casts and a selection of paintings; Bargue was engaged to copy those drawings on lithographic stones to be printed by Goupil & Cie, the most important art publisher and dealer of the time. Courses I and II were published in 1868 while Course III, which appears to be the work of Bargue alone (since his is the only name on the frontispiece), wasn't published until 1873.

Course I of the Cours de Dessin included 70 lithographic prints of plaster casts, progressing from the simplest images of an ear, a foot, or a hand up to the final plates in which complete classical sculptures are presented for copying. Most of the objects are shown twice, once as a schematic line drawing with grid lines to help with measurements, and a second time with three-dimensional shading. Students were expected to make exact copies of each drawing in charcoal, laying in the schematic lines and then adding shading. As they worked, the students would observe both the Bargue lithograph and their copies from a measured and demarked distance to make sure their completed drawing was exactly the same size as the printed plate.

The second part of the Bargue/Gérôme course presented 60 lithographs of drawings and paintings by artists considered the greatest of any historical period. Included are Michelangelo figures from the Sistine Chapel, Raphael paintings of women and men, Hans Holbein the Younger portraits, and drawings by artists of the time, including Gérôme, Gleyre, and Couture. Those were presented as models of both expert skill and good taste. By making exact copies of these plates, the art student would gain an understanding of form, line, value, and aesthetics.

Course III, Charcoal Exercises in Preparation for Drawing the Male Academic Nude, was designed only for fine-arts students because it was assumed that designers and decorators didn't need training that led to drawing a live model. The 60 lithographs were referred to as academies, meaning drawings or paintings of male models in poses considered to be "noble and classic." Female models were not used in life-drawing classes in 19th-century academies until quite some time after the middle of the century, and students were expected to learn to draw the female form from statuary and other works of art. The first proofs of the Course III lithographs showed completely nude men, while the more modest later sets included loin clothes draped over the men's genitals.

Bargue's lithographs in Course III were outline drawings of the models, almost all with no facial features and very few notations within the outline to indicate volume or anatomical detail. In most cases, the outlines are drawn in straight segments, and the joints are delineated as sharp angles. That's because students were encouraged, when drawing the curve of an arm or leg, to simplify the contour of the part into straight lines. First, one marks the beginning and end of the curve, then, "by finding the apex of the curve and marking it, and joining the three marks, an accurate approximation of the curve is produced from which the curve can later be developed," Ackerman explains. "If you draw a curve without any help, you will probably draw an arc, and you may not know when to stop."

Written instructions were never published with the drawing course because it was assumed that the instructors who made the plates available to their students knew the long-established, conventional routine of teaching drawing and could explain the recommended procedures. But a hundred years after the course was abandoned, few teachers can adequately explain how the Bargue lithographs might be used. In writing his book, Ackerman was left with the monumental task of preparing such detailed instructions.

"The course had no text, and although it was self-evident that these were beautiful drawings—inspiring and exemplary models that any figurative artist would prize and want to copy—I as an art historian and not a trained artist found it hard to imagine my writing an explanation of the plates and their use," Ackerman explains in the preface of his book. He goes on to credit Daniel Graves, to whom the book is dedicated, for urging him to write the book and for teaching him how to draw. After studying with Graves in Florence for five semesters over a 10-year period, Ackerman felt confident enough to write the recommendations for using the Bargue plates, with the help of Graves and artist Graydon Parrish, his co-editor.

In order to faithfully pursue the Bargue drawing course, an artist must be prepared to devote a considerable amount of time and energy to the effort. Ackerman recommends spending up to 15 hours over several weeks on each copy, always working from a standing position. "It's quite typical, in the schools where the drawings are still used, as in the Florence Academy of Art, to spend three to five weeks of three daily hour sessions making exact copies of the plates in Courses I and II," he explains, "and it would take less but still considerable time to copy each of the plates in Course III, considering that the student would be more advanced." Furthermore, Ackerman strongly recommends that artists use the sight-size method of standing a constant distance from the Bargue plates and the drawing surface so that the copies are exactly the size of the image seen from that distance. This practice will prepare the student for drawing from live models. For an appendix in the book that explains the use of the sight-size technique, Parrish prepared diagrammatic drawings to explain how artists should be positioned to use the technique.

The exhibition titled "Charles Bargue: The Art of Drawing," organized by Stephen Edidin, the chief curator, was on view at the Dahesh Museum of Art from November 25 through February 8, 2004. The Dahesh Museum of Art is the only institution in the United States devoted to collecting, exhibiting, and interpreting works by Europe's academically trained artists of the 19th and early 20th centuries. For more information, write: Dahesh Museum of Art, 580 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10022; or visit: www.daheshmuseum.org.

Charles Bargue Drawing Course, With the Collaboration of Jean-Léon Gérôme, by Gerald M. Ackerman (with the collaboration of Graydon Parrish), is published by ACR Edition Internationale, Paris. The Musée Goupil of Bordeaux, France, which owns the copy of the course reproduced in the book, has given permission for the Drawing Course plates to be copied and enlarged from the book for study purposes. The book is available from the Dahesh Museum of Art bookstore; copies may be ordered by phone: (212) 759-0606, ext. 235 (paperback $45, plus $6 postage; hardback $65, plus $8 postage).