Cours de dessin Paperback – March 19, 2019

I have used this book for inspiration and to help me articulate certain details that are well displayed in this book. I enjoy drawing as a practice and find this book very helpful.

The book is beautiful, and while I don’t own any other Bargue prints for comparison, I think the printing & binding was well-doneexcept: they printed on paper that is too thin, so you see through to the other side of drawing too easily. I have a hard time deciphering whether a mark is lightly drawn, or if I am actually seeing a picture from the other side.

These are mediocre reproductions. As an art teacher, I need higher quality.

Good sketch book to train yourself to draw based on Bargue and Gerome original cours de dessin as it was taught at the Academie until the 70's. No texts here, u go to the point. Reserved for people who have in parallel a drawing class according to me and who want to observe and do studies. Practicing is the key. Reproducing these drawings might help to decifer and understand the rules of the Academie that are barely taught now. Yet, they are important for who wants to realize similar drawings like the ones on the plates. Do not only try to reproduce some of them and that is it. The illustrations are based on morcelled Greeks statues for the most parts. The book starts with eyes, noses, mouths and chins and goes on with profiles, ears, feets, etc. End of the book is dedicated to full size models like in life drawing classes. It is beautiful drawings that are great to observe lines, proportions, light and shadows among other things. No sanguine or other mediums here, all illustrations are pencils. It is pretty cheap so anyone interested in drawing should get it. The book has been printed in the USA in 2019.

First of all this book is beautifully made. It's got a luxurious matte jacket that is soft - almost rubber to the feel but strong and well glued. The pages are rough toothed like drawing paper which is actually complimenting to the drawings inside (makes them feel more real) and makes the book lighter and easier to enjoy.This is not a small book- I am tired of getting tricked into Taschen pocket-sized miniatures!It's a good size, like a really thick catalog- but really light and well designed.For the content:This abridged version of the original Atelier Course is the "Cream of the Crop" drawings, (all of the good stuff) at a fraction of the cost. If you own the original Bargue Course it's a bit expensive and has a lot of extra (poorly reproduced) photo copies of Michaelangelo or Davinci. The stuff you've already seen basically.This book only has the best drawings from the original course, the ones that Van Goh and Sargent used.I love this book and it's certain to become on of my favorite drawing books (and I own a small library of 400 art books.) Get it! You will like it!

Liked

This book contains parts I (anatomical sketches) and III (figure drawing) of the original Bargue drawing course. Part II, with master drawings for the student to copy, was omitted on the grounds that reproductions of such drawings are nowadays readily accessible anyway (the authors claim).The plates are nice and large, so at about 1/10 of the prize of the original book, this is a no-brainer, if you were thinking about getting the Bargue at all. I'm enjoying the book very much. Of course, just copying its plates will not make you a master draftsman; it's not really the same thing as drawing from life, as proportions are easier to see in a reproduction and accurate measurements (if you want them) present no problems either.

This book has no text except a short introduction and a list of plate names. Why buy it? If you bought the larger Charles Bargue Drawing Coursing and wanted a copy of the plates to make it easier to draw them, this is the book to buy. I’ve found pdfs of the plates that aren’t as good as this book. I’d buy a few of them so if you want you can take them apart. This book should be much more popular.

In this review I will talk about the flaws of this edition of Bargue's "Cours de dessin" and why they don't really matter.For those who don't know, the original "Cours de dessin" as designed by Charles Bargue and Jean-Leon Gerome consists of three parts. Part I includes drawings of various plaster casts; part II includes litographic reproductions of master drawings by famous European artists; and part III includes examples of figure drawing (male nudes). In my opinion, only the first part still has any significant value today. Parts II is mostly irrelevant because you can find high resolution images of pretty much any work of art on the Internet and study it to your heart's content. Part III is irrelevant because there are numerous websites and reference packs specifically designed for figure drawings. I am not really a maser draftsman, but I have more than a thousand reference photos for figure drawing, almost all of them more interesting and/or challenging than images in the third part of Bargue's drawing course.This edition completely omits the second part, and I'm totally fine with that. The last 7 plates from the third part are a tad blurry, but I'm also OK with that (for reasons explained above). The plates from the first part--the most valuable part of the course--are reproduced with sufficient quality. I can see individual pencil strokes, which means that they are good enough to serve as a reference. In addition, this book is so cheap that I bought two of them. I put one on the shelf, and cut off the spine from the other one and put it into a ring binder. This means that I can take out any individual plate at any time, make notes directly on the pages etc. -- it does not really matter.I subtract one star from my rating because the first three plates (eyes, mouths and noses) are unusable. They contain multiple images each, which means that each individual image is about the same size as a matchbox--completely unsuitable for copying using the traditional site-size method. It would be much better to split these plates into multiple pages to make sure that every individual image is large enough to be useful. Still, for less than 8 quid I can't really complain.

Pour me servir de modèle pour des cours de dessin suivant la méthode de Bargues.

本物のサイズは小さいです

I want to improve my drawing skills and copying Bargue plates is a perfect way to do this. I have the large Charles Bargue course book at home but I wanted something I could extract individual sheets from and make notes on them as I saw fit. This book is perfect. I cut the spine off with a scalpel then punched holes in the sheets and put the whole lot inside a ring binder. I personally don’t think the pictures are poor quality as some other reviewers have said. They could certainly be a bit better, but not at this price, and they’re exactly what I want. They’re clear enough for me to practice my drawing.The book itself is just under 22cm across and 28cm high. It’s in two main sections. The first section has 70 traditional Bargue plates in the same format as the original drawings – that is a finished picture with the preparatory stages of the drawing included. These are laid out with the preparatory outline sketches on the left hand page and the final drawing on the right side, or with both sets on the same page. Those familiar with Bargue plates will know what I mean. This is excellent and each set of preparatory sketches plus the finished article counts as one plate, so you get your 130 plates plus. The second section has 60 traditional pose plates, which are simplified drawings of the full human figure. Just like the original course, these are all male figures, including a few of a young boy, mostly in loin cloths and a few (tastefully) nude.Overall I think it’s a great drawing reference for under £8. The Bargue course book will set you back five times that. If you want to improve your drawing skills by copying classical art you could do a lot worse than this!

The purpose being a guide towards professional figure drawing. Best parts of the original Bargue teachings.