Week 1: Not drawing yet

Sam our tutor introduced us to the Barque Cours de Dessin with a brief history lesson, to put some context on what we were going to be working on over the next few weeks.

An example of a Braque plate

Derek Zoolander school for kids that can't draw good

In 1865 the French Inspector of Fine Arts commissioned a draftsman Charles Bargue and an artist Jean-Leon Gerome to create a course that would provide master drawings and models for artists to use as references for their work and to use as a learning tool. It was felt at the time that there was no complete or comprehensive collection of drawings accurately depicting the human anatomy and as a result the quality of artistic work was falling short. Basically there was a need for "The Derek Zoolander school for kids that can't draw good". But where would this pair find material to serve as a set of master drawings, a baseline and set of exercises that an artist could work through to improve their technique. Well that's were the Leonardo da Vinci, Michaelanglo and the Renaissance comes in. Much, although by no means all, the material comes from this period.

The Renaissance - oh no I'm back in school snoozing at the back of a history class

An example of pre Renaissance art - mmm!

Ok I'll be brief and focus on the art bit. The Renaissance began around the 14th century in Florance and other parts of Italy as Europe emerged from the middle ages. Why Italy, well it was the home to some the richest merchants on earth (like the Medici family) and a very wealthy Catholic church that had significant business interests and poltical power. One little enterprise, for example, was to get rich people to pay the church large somes of money so they could get early parole from Purgatory. Purgatory was like a full Ryanair flight to Spain or Portugal during the summer, if you were rich you could pay for Priority Boarding, its still a miserable experience but the misery ends sooner, then your on your holidays aka Heaven.

Merchants and the church sponsored most of artists of the time commissioning them to paint, sculpt and decorate the ever more elaborate homes and churches - think MTV Cribs. In addition ancient artifacts like the Belvedere Torso and the Laocoön were unearthed which depicted anatomically accurate statues created by mainly Greek and Roman artists over a thousands years earlier. These became the master models for artists like Michelangelo. It inspired them to create paintings and sculpture that had a sense of realism.

The Belvedere Torso (1st Century BC) - Rome - 2012 and Michelangelo's David

Over the centuries the Belvedere Torso has become a sort of right of passage for many artists famous and not so famous, from da Vinci and Rembrant, through to post-impressionists like van Gogh and the founder of Cubism Picasso. Its no surprise then that the Belvedere Torso is included the Barque drawing course, in fact it was the Belvedere Torso plate that van Gogh and Picasso used. Yes they both used the Barque Cours de Dissin - van Gogh was known to have done it three times.

An example of a plate from Barque's course

Drawing eye's - Barque plate

Kitsch and naff - now get to the point

OK back to Bargue. Today all this classical art is largely considered historically interesting but its basically tourist fodder and artistically naff; like having Romanesque columns on your house. Exhibitions with spray painted toilet bowels with dead cats hanging out of them now that's were all the cool people hang out. 

 

But this misses the point, the course is intended as a training manual with a series of increasingly difficult exercises that need to be completed. Each page, known as a plate, requires the artist to make an exact copy of the drawing or painting, including shading and so on. The idea was to copy not intrepret - something van Gogh really struggled with. By laying a good foundation the artist is then able to go away and express their own style and idea's like Picasso or toilet bowel artists - well may be not the last group. 

For me I just want to be able to draw super heros like DC Comic artist Jim Lee, only joking - well sort of. To do what they do artists like Lee really need to understand human automony just as much as fine artists like Shane Wolf . The point is to develop a good foundation and go from there.

Next week we should start drawing stuff. I'll post up my efforts. Hopefully there'll be less words and more drawings I hope.