Charles Bargue and Jean-Leon Gerome: Drawing Course

Rating:
Summary: a treasury of lost teachings
Review: This book is essential for those students who wish to study art seriously, and to make themselves capable enough draftmen in order to paint. It is a complete reproduction of the "fabled but rare" drawing course used in Gerome's studio in nineteenth century Paris, comprising multiple levels of cast drawings, master-copies and linear life-drawings designed specifically to train the student's eye for painting.

The plates are meant for study, to be copied by the student for several purposes; mainly serving as an introduction to the academic drawing process, but also as an artistic and anatomical reference for showing what is essential in form - Bargue, as a teacher, is unmatched in this respect.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the study and/or appreciation of fine drawing, and cannot thank the Dahesh museum enough for compiling it!