Bargues tegnekursus er 197 plader, som eleverne på 1800-tallets kunstskoler skulle kopiere, før de gik videre til at tegne efter gipsafstøbninger og levende model. Pladerne blev tegnet og litograferet af Charles Bargue i samarbejde med maleren Jean-Léon Gérôme. De udkom i Paris i årene omkring 1867-1873.
Kurset er bygget op trin for trin: fra øjne, næser og hænder over hoveder til hele figurer. Mange plader viser både et enkelt omrids af lige linjer og den færdige, skyggelagte tegning, så du kan se vejen fra den store form til detaljen.
Vincent van Gogh lærte sig selv at tegne figurer med kurset, og i dag bruges det igen i klassiske tegneskoler. Kurset findes også i bogform (se "Kurset i dag"). Her kan du se alle pladerne og hente dem i fuld størrelse til print.
Bargue's drawing course is a set of 197 plates that students at 19th-century art schools were to copy before moving on to drawing from plaster casts and the live model. The plates were drawn and lithographed by Charles Bargue in collaboration with the painter Jean-Léon Gérôme. They were published in Paris between about 1867 and 1873.
The course is built up step by step: from eyes, noses and hands, via heads, to full figures. Many plates show both a simple outline of straight lines and the finished, shaded drawing, so you can see the path from the big shapes to the details.
Vincent van Gogh taught himself figure drawing using the course, and today it is once again in use in classical drawing schools. The course is also available as a book (see "The course today"). Here you can see all the plates and download them at full size for printing.
Hvad er det?
Bargues tegnekursus ("Cours de dessin") er en samling på 197 litograferede plader i tre dele:
- Del 1 - Efter gipsafstøbninger (70 plader): dele af ansigtet, hænder og fødder, hoveder, torsoer og hele figurer, tegnet efter gipsafstøbninger af antik og senere skulptur.
- Del 2 - Efter mestrene (67 plader): kopier efter tegninger af mestre fra forskellige tider og skoler.
- Del 3 - Øvelser i kul (60 plader): tegninger af nøgne modeller (såkaldte akademier) som forberedelse til at tegne efter levende model.
Pladerne er store, ca. 44 x 59 cm, og blev trykt hos Lemercier & Cie i Paris.
Hvor stammer det fra?
Kurset blev sat i gang omkring 1864-65 af kunstforlaget Goupil & Cie i Paris. Baggrunden var en udbredt bekymring i Frankrig over, at kunst- og designelever tegnede for dårligt.
Tegningerne og litografierne er lavet af Charles Bargue (ca. 1825-1883), litograf, tegner og maler. Den kunstneriske ledelse lå hos Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904), en af tidens mest kendte akademiske malere og professor ved École des Beaux-Arts i Paris. Gérôme valgte, hvilke skulpturer og tegninger der skulle med. Han var gift med forlæggerens datter, så forbindelsen til Goupil var tæt. Kurset var lavet til at blive solgt til kunstskoler og tegnelærere. Kilderne siger ikke, om Gérôme selv brugte pladerne i sit eget atelier.
De tre dele udkom i årene omkring 1867-1873 (kilderne er ikke enige om de præcise år). Goupil solgte kurset internationalt, og det blev brugt på kunstskoler i store dele af den vestlige verden. Løse plader blev solgt helt frem til omkring 1920.
Med modernismen gik kurset af mode, og omkring 1945 var de fleste sæt slidt op, kasseret eller glemt. Det blev genopdaget i 1980'erne af maleren Daniel Graves, og i 2003 udkom alle pladerne igen i bogform med kommentarer af kunsthistorikeren Gerald M. Ackerman. Siden er kurset igen blevet et fast forløb i klassiske tegneskoler.
Idéen bag
Eleven skulle lære at se og gengive form, før han tegnede efter noget tredimensionelt. En plade er allerede "oversat" til en flad tegning, så eleven kunne koncentrere sig om at gengive den præcist, uden selv at skulle løse problemet med at gøre tre dimensioner til to.
Rækkefølgen er pædagogisk opbygget. Del 1 begynder med enkle dele og ender med hele figurer. Del 2 og 3 bygger videre med mestertegninger og akademier.
Mange plader viser to versioner side om side: et skematisk omrids af lige linjer, punkter og vinkler, og den færdige tegning med skygger. Det viser, hvordan man går fra den store form til detaljen - først placering og proportioner, derefter kontur, så skyggeformerne og til sidst de fine overgange. Lyset falder skråt ind, og valørerne er holdt i en klar orden fra lys til mørk, så formen står tydeligt.
Der fulgte ingen trykt vejledning med pladerne. Hvordan de skulle bruges, var lærerens sag.
Fra marmor til dit papir
Når du tegner en plade fra del 1, står du for enden af en lang kæde af hænder:
- En billedhugger lavede statuen i marmor eller bronze. Mange antikke statuer er romerske kopier af græske originaler, så kæden kan begynde endnu tidligere.
- En formstøber tog en afstøbning i gips. Gipsafstøbninger af berømte statuer stod på kunstskolerne, så eleverne kunne tegne efter dem.
- Charles Bargue tegnede gipsafstøbningen.
- Tegningen blev overført til en litografisk sten, så den kunne trykkes. Bargue var selv litograf, så det har formentlig været hans egen hånd.
- Trykkeriet Lemercier trykte pladerne, og Goupil udgav dem.
- Bibliothèque nationale de France bevarede et sæt, scannede det og gjorde det frit tilgængeligt på Gallica.
- Steens Toolbox har samlet pladerne her og skrevet om dem.
- Og til sidst: dig, der tegner.
I del 2 begynder kæden med mesterens egen tegning, og i del 3 med en levende model.
Hvert led er en oversættelse, og noget går tabt eller bliver lagt til undervejs. Men idéen er gammel: I flere hundrede år lærte tegnere ved at kopiere de store mestre - ikke for at efterligne dem, men for at se, hvordan de løste problemerne. Pladerne gør de løsninger tilgængelige for alle.
Sådan gør du
Der er ikke én rigtig måde at bruge pladerne på, men et typisk forløb kan se sådan ud:
- Begynd i starten af del 1. De første plader er enkle med vilje. Spring ikke over dem, fordi de ser lette ud.
- Print pladen så stor som muligt, og sæt den op ved siden af dit papir. De originale plader var ca. 44 x 59 cm, så selv et A3-print (ca. 30 x 42 cm) er mindre end originalen.
- Tegn i samme størrelse som dit print (1:1). Så kan du sammenligne og måle direkte mellem plade og tegning. Når du er blevet øvet, kan du prøve at tegne i en anden størrelse - så træner du at se proportioner i stedet for at måle dem.
- Tegn omridset først. Brug det skematiske omrids som model: lige linjer, få punkter, store vinkler. Mål og sammenlign proportioner, fx med en blyant eller et lod i strakt arm, og ret, indtil formen passer.
- Forfin konturen, når de store forhold sidder.
- Læg skyggeformerne ind som enkle flader, og tjek dem mod pladen.
- Arbejd valørerne frem fra de mørkeste til de lyseste overgange. Tag dig tid - en enkelt plade kan sagtens tage mange timer.
- Sammenlign hele tiden. Træd et skridt tilbage og se tegning og plade samtidig.
Mange bruger i dag sight-size-metoden: tegning og plade i samme størrelse side om side, sammenlignet fra en fast afstand. Det er en moderne måde at bruge pladerne på. Der er intet, der viser, at Bargue eller hans samtids elever arbejdede sådan.
Klassisk blev pladerne kopieret med kul, men blyant går fint.
Hvorfor det hjælper
Når du kopierer en plade, træner du præcis det, der er svært ved at tegne efter virkeligheden: at se proportioner, vinkler og valører, som de er, og ikke som du tror, de er. Fordi pladen ikke flytter sig, og lyset ikke ændrer sig, kan du sammenligne igen og igen, til det passer.
Kurset lærer dig også en arbejdsgang: fra stor form til detalje, fra lige linjer til kurver, fra enkle skyggeflader til fine overgange. Den arbejdsgang kan du tage med, når du senere tegner efter gips, stilleben eller levende model.
Vincent van Gogh lånte del 3 i 1880 og arbejdede sig igennem den som selvlært. I et brev til sin bror Theo i 1881 skrev han, at det omhyggelige og gentagne arbejde med Bargues øvelser i kul havde givet ham mere indsigt i at tegne figurer. Også den unge Pablo Picasso kopierede efter kurset på kunstskolen i A Coruña.
Et forbehold: Pladerne er tegninger af skulpturer og tegninger - altså flere led fra virkeligheden, som kæden ovenfor viser - og det gamle papir er mørknet med tiden, så valørerne er lidt forskudt. Kurset er en god skole i at se og gengive, men det erstatter ikke at tegne efter rigtige ting.
Kurset i dag
Ud over pladerne her findes kurset i bogform:
- Gerald M. Ackerman og Graydon Parrish: Charles Bargue and Jean-Léon Gérôme: Drawing Course (ACC Art Books, 2019, ISBN 978-1-78884-044-6). Alle pladerne med kommentarer til hver enkelt, en biografi om Bargue og et afsnit om sight-size. Udkom første gang i 2003, også på fransk (Cours de dessin). Indbundet, 336 sider.
- Burst Books: Complete Bargue Drawing Course (red. Gareth Thomas, 2021, ISBN 979-8-7082-8091-6). En selvudgivet paperback på 150 sider med pladerne digitalt restaureret og uden kommentarer. Fås mest via Amazon. Anmeldere nævner, at trykkvaliteten er svingende.
Ackerman-bogen kan bestilles gennem almindelige boghandlere og netboghandlere.
What is it?
Bargue's drawing course ("Cours de dessin") is a collection of 197 lithographed plates in three parts:
- Part 1 - After plaster casts (70 plates): parts of the face, hands and feet, heads, torsos and full figures, drawn from plaster casts of classical and later sculpture.
- Part 2 - After the masters (67 plates): copies of drawings by masters from different periods and schools.
- Part 3 - Charcoal exercises (60 plates): drawings of nude models (known as académies) as preparation for drawing from the live model.
The plates are large, about 44 x 59 cm, and were printed by Lemercier & Cie in Paris.
Where does it come from?
The course was initiated around 1864-65 by the art publisher Goupil & Cie in Paris. It grew out of a widespread concern in France that art and design students could not draw well enough.
The drawings and lithographs were made by Charles Bargue (c. 1825-1883), lithographer, draughtsman and painter. The artistic direction lay with Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904), one of the best-known academic painters of the time and a professor at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Gérôme chose which sculptures and drawings to include. He was married to the publisher's daughter, so his ties to Goupil were close. The course was produced for sale to art schools and drawing teachers. The sources do not say whether Gérôme himself used the plates in his own studio.
The three parts were published between about 1867 and 1873 (the sources disagree on the exact years). Goupil sold the course internationally, and it was used in art schools across much of the Western world. Individual plates were still sold right up until around 1920.
With the rise of modernism the course went out of fashion, and by around 1945 most sets had been worn out, thrown away or forgotten. It was rediscovered in the 1980s by the painter Daniel Graves, and in 2003 all the plates were published again in book form with commentary by the art historian Gerald M. Ackerman. Since then the course has once more become a fixed part of the curriculum in classical drawing schools.
The idea behind it
The student was to learn to see and reproduce form before drawing from anything three-dimensional. A plate had already been "translated" into a flat drawing, so the student could concentrate on reproducing it accurately, without having to solve for themselves the problem of turning three dimensions into two.
The plates are arranged in a teaching sequence. Part 1 begins with simple parts and ends with full figures. Parts 2 and 3 continue with master drawings and académies.
Many plates show two versions side by side: a schematic outline of straight lines, points and angles, and the finished drawing with shading. This shows how to go from the big shapes to the details - first placement and proportions, then contour, then the shadow shapes and finally the subtle transitions. The light falls at an angle, and the values are clearly graded from light to dark, so the form reads well.
No printed instructions came with the plates. How to use them was up to the teacher.
From marble to your paper
When you copy a plate from Part 1, you stand at the end of a long chain of hands:
- A sculptor made the statue in marble or bronze. Many classical statues are Roman copies of Greek originals, so the chain may begin even earlier.
- A plaster caster made a cast of it. Plaster casts of famous statues stood in the art schools so the students could draw from them.
- Charles Bargue drew the plaster cast.
- The drawing was transferred to a lithographic stone so it could be printed. Bargue was himself a lithographer, so he probably did this himself.
- The printer Lemercier printed the plates, and Goupil published them.
- The Bibliothèque nationale de France preserved a set, scanned it and made it freely available on its digital library, Gallica.
- Steens Toolbox has collected the plates here and written about them.
- And finally: you, drawing.
In Part 2 the chain begins with the master's own drawing, and in Part 3 with a live model.
Each link is a translation, and something is lost or added along the way. But the idea is old: for hundreds of years, people learned to draw by copying the great masters - not to imitate them, but to see how they solved the problems. The plates make those solutions available to everyone.
How to do it
There is no single right way to use the plates, but a typical approach might look like this:
- Start at the beginning of Part 1. The first plates are simple on purpose. Don't skip them because they look easy.
- Print the plate as large as you can and put it up next to your paper. The original plates were about 44 x 59 cm, so even an A3 print (about 30 x 42 cm) is smaller than the original.
- Draw at the same size as your print (1:1). That way you can compare and measure directly between plate and drawing. Once you are more practised, you can try drawing at a different size - that trains you to see proportions instead of measuring them.
- Draw the outline first. Use the schematic outline as your model: straight lines, few points, big angles. Measure and compare proportions, for example with a pencil or a plumb line at arm's length, and correct until the shape is right.
- Refine the contour once the big relationships are right.
- Put in the shadow shapes as simple areas, and check them against the plate.
- Build up the values from darkest to lightest, and finish with the transitions between them. Take your time - a single plate can easily take many hours.
- Keep comparing. Step back and look at drawing and plate together.
Many people today use the sight-size method: drawing and plate at the same size side by side, compared from a fixed distance. This is a modern way of using the plates. There is no evidence that Bargue or the students of his time worked this way.
Traditionally the plates were copied in charcoal, but pencil works fine.
Why it helps
When you copy a plate, you practise precisely the skills that make drawing from life difficult: seeing proportions, angles and values as they are, and not as you think they are. Because the plate does not move and the light does not change, you can compare again and again until they match.
The course also teaches you a way of working: from big shapes to details, from straight lines to curves, from simple shadow shapes to subtle transitions. You can take that way of working with you when you later draw from casts, still life or the live model.
Vincent van Gogh borrowed Part 3 in 1880 and worked his way through it on his own. In a letter to his brother Theo in 1881 he wrote that the careful, repeated work with Bargue's charcoal exercises had given him more insight into figure drawing. The young Pablo Picasso also copied from the course at the art school in A Coruña.
A caveat: the plates are drawings of sculptures and of other drawings - several links away from reality, as the chain above shows - and the old paper has darkened over time, so the values are slightly shifted. The course is good training in seeing and reproducing, but it does not replace drawing from real things.
The course today
Besides the plates here, the course is available in book form:
- Gerald M. Ackerman and Graydon Parrish: Charles Bargue and Jean-Léon Gérôme: Drawing Course (ACC Art Books, 2019, ISBN 978-1-78884-044-6). All the plates with commentary on each one, a biography of Bargue and a section on sight-size. First published in 2003; also available in French (Cours de dessin). Hardback, 336 pages.
- Burst Books: Complete Bargue Drawing Course (ed. Gareth Thomas, 2021, ISBN 979-8-7082-8091-6). A self-published paperback of 150 pages with the plates digitally restored and without commentary. Mainly available through Amazon. Reviewers mention that the print quality varies.
The Ackerman book can be ordered through any bookshop and online booksellers.
Pladerne er gengivet fra Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) via Gallica: del 1, del 2, del 3.
Source gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France
Værkerne er offentlig ejendom (public domain). Efter Gallicas vilkår må billederne bruges frit og gratis til ikke-kommercielle formål, så længe kildeangivelsen står ved. Kommerciel brug kræver licens fra BnF.
Plade II-08 og III-32 mangler i Gallicas udgave og kommer senere.
Teksten og sammenstillingen her er lavet af Steens Toolbox og udgivet under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0: du må dele og kopiere den - også PDF'erne, fx til en tegneklasse - så længe den er hel og uændret, med kildeangivelse og ikke kommercielt. Pladerne selv er offentlig ejendom og følger Gallicas vilkår ovenfor. Er du i tvivl om, hvad du må, så skriv til mig under "Fejl eller idé?" på Mere.
Oplysninger om de originale skulpturer stammer fra museernes egne samlingssider (link ved den enkelte plade). Teksten bygger bl.a. på BnF-kataloget, Van Gogh-brevene (vangoghletters.org), Art Renewal Center, Musée Picasso Paris og sightsize.com.
The plates are reproduced from the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) via Gallica: part 1, part 2, part 3.
Source gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France
The works are in the public domain. Under Gallica's terms of use the images may be used freely and at no cost for non-commercial purposes, as long as the source credit is kept. Commercial use requires a licence from the BnF.
Plates II-08 and III-32 are missing from the Gallica edition and will be added later.
The text and the compilation here are made by Steens Toolbox and published under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0: you may share and copy it - including the PDFs, for example for a drawing class - as long as it is complete and unchanged, with credit and not commercially. The plates themselves are in the public domain and follow Gallica's terms above. If you are unsure what you may do, write to me under "Bug or idea?" on More.
Information about the original sculptures comes from the museums' own collection pages (linked from each plate). The text draws on, among others, the BnF catalogue, the Van Gogh letters (vangoghletters.org), the Art Renewal Center, the Musée Picasso Paris and sightsize.com.