Bargue’s course is a 19th century (1866-1871), French, “drawing course”. It was “written” by Charles Bargue under the supervision of Jean-Léon Gérôme.
The “course” consists of three series of plates. The series have been later augmented by a few words from Gerald M. Ackerman. I would recommend the reader not to consider Gerald’s viewpoint, however insightful, as too absolute.
The plates were designed and arranged by expert crafstmen and teachers. Conoisseurs observed that fine-art teaching by the end of the 19th century had deteriorated greatly. A major identified cause was the lack of suitable models to work from. The plates were thus crafted to provide excellent, foundational models for novices.
The core idea behind this course is for the student to study/copy the plates provided by the teacher. In my opinion, for early students, in particular self-taught ones, emphasizing perfect accuracy is the most efficient approach. It’ll train the eye and the hand rapidly. However, once this, high-accuracy may not be sought as much past some point. For, an over-emphasis on accuracy may be detrimental to a well-rounded artistic education. You’ll want to outgrow high-accuracy once you’ve well mastered it.
To say it otherwise, copying is a fantastic way to learn the craft. It’s paradoxically a poor way to create art.
Overall, the course is excellent. There’s nothing much to complain about the first series of plates, except perhaps the size at which they are printed − bigger reproductions would have been appreciable. We can only deplore that the second series of plates are reproduced to an ever smaller scale. To the point of beeing poorly suitable for study. A good substitute/complement to the second series of plates would be l(“TODO-russian-book”), although it’s not as diverse in style as what Bargue’s second series proposes.
Original size, lithographic prints are available. But they are way more expensive.
As a side effect, the third series of plates provide a synthetic way to represent, indicate the human figure. It’s an interesting alternative to other similar systems, such as Huston’s, Reilly-Watts’s, etc.