In response to concerns expressed about the quality of work being produced at that time by students at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Charles Bargue (1826-83) was asked, along with Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904) to produce a drawing course. In consequence his Cours de dessin was published by the Parisian dealers Goupil & Cie between 1868 and 1871. Arguably the most influential and most well-known classical drawing course in history, the modern edition of the Bargue Drawing Course edited by Gerald Ackerman is a set of 197 lithographs of subjects for copying by drawing students, before they attempt drawing from life or nature. The course is divided into three parts. The first consists of plates drawn after casts, usually from ancient examples. Different parts of the body are studied in order of difficulty, until full figures are presented. The second section pays homage to the Western school of painting, with lithographs after exemplary drawings by Renaissance and modern masters. The third contains almost 60 drawings after nude male models, all original inventions by Bargue. These would only have been undertaken by fine art students and is a series of what we now call ‘life drawings’ – depictions of the male nude in various poses. Students were expected to copy the drawings with great accuracy, producing work which was, to all intents and purposes, of a standard that rendered it indistinguishable from the original.

By such means, the student is continually introduced to progressively more difficult problems in the close observation and recording of nature. Art students will find it a practical and progressive introduction to realistic figure drawing. Thus antiquity is used, not to impose a classical style, but as an aid to seeing the structure of the human body with clarity and intelligence.