Charles Bargue was a French painter and lithographer noted for devising an influential drawing course.
He is mostly remembered for his Cours de dessin, one of the most influential classical drawing courses conceived in collaboration with Jean-Léon Gérôme. The course, published between 1866 and 1871 by Goupil & Cie, comprised 197 lithographs printed as individual sheets, was to guide students from plaster casts to the study of great master drawings and finally to drawing from the living model. The Charles Bargue Drawing Course is used by many academies and ateliers which focus of classical realism. Among the artists whose work is based on the study of Bargue's plate work are Pablo Picasso and Vincent van Gogh, who copied the complete set in 1880/1881, and (at least a part of it) again in 1890.
Bargue was a student of Jean-Léon Gérôme. Bargue worked closely with Gérôme and was influenced by his style, which included Orientalist scenes and historical genre. Bargue's last painting was completed by Gérôme and is now conserved in the Malden Public Library, Malden, Massachusetts, USA. He travelled extensively through North Africa, and the Balkans, during which time he executed many portraits of local people with meticulous detail.
Publication
Paintings
Head of Young man, (Study) 1860
The Albanian Sentinel, 1860
The Sentinel, 1872
A Bashi-Bazouk, 1875
The Albanian Sentinel in Cairo, 1877

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