Bargue plates- another interpretation

[Marvin Mattelson]

I have been aware of the Bargue plates for a very long time and have used them extensively in my teachings. Many of my former students have gone on the experience great success in the fields of fine art, portraiture, illustration, animation as well as many other artistic disciplines. Joseph Daily won Best of Show at the Portrait Society while still only 23 years old. Lori Early just had a sold out show at the Opera Gallery in NYC. The list is endless.

Regarding the Bargue book, it was actually me who announced its long eagerly waited publication here on this forum. It is my humble, but I believe, informed opinion, based on both my teaching experience and my observation of other educational methodologies, that the plates are not being utilized to their best advantage, if seeing correctly is the goal. In my view there is a huge difference between learning how to see and learning how to copy, which is the way, I feel, the plates are being currently utilized today.

If rendering were the goal, why is that the second section of the book deals with drawing technique? Wouldn't it have been more logical to have that part first? The truth is that the plates came with no instruction so who is to say I'm incorrect? I'm relying on my logic and I've had great success doing so. I just follow the breadcrumbs. I believe that true artistic nature compels us to question all.

What is the intrinsic difference between religiously copying a drawing by Bargue or a photo of a tree? I see none. Great drawing is about seeing correctly and then making an informed interpretation, based on your artistic goals and your understanding. This is what I teach my students to do.

When using the plates, I have my students cover the construct diagram for each plate and look at the final rendering as done by Bargue. I have my students try to create their own construct drawing while looking at Bargues rendered cast drawing. The point of these plates is to convey how to simplify the complexity of the world around us and give us a handle on building up from large to small. Bouguereau said that the key was keep the small accents subservient to the large planes. My approach teaches just that. When finished, my students compare their simplification with Bargues.

I believe Bargues intention was to move from being able to simplify to working from casts, but like another rebel, Thomas Eakins, I eschew laborious copying of casts in favor or working from the live model. Once they get the hang of it, my students work from a live model applying their newly minted observational skills. That way my students don't fall into the trap of drawing (or painting) from dead cold plaster, but work exclusively from live subjects. The most important aspect in art, to me, is maintaining the life force of your subjects, something I feel sorely lacking in today's realism.

My students make very rapid progress using my approach, and most importantly their work has real spirit. Meticulously copying anything, in my opinion, tends to make students over tighten and squeeze the life out of their work.

I feel that the purpose of all drawing instruction is to teach the students how to see the world objectively, as well as offer the tools with which to interpret it. This is the way I've been educating my students for years.

I have great respect for the goals of the contemporary ateliers. They are very dedicated in trying to recreate their ideas of what a 19th Century art educational curriculum was comprised of. I think they should be lauded and praised for bringing a more formal academic art education back into vogue. Certainly the loosey goosey approach that has been in vogue for so many years was not working, but is this new approach beyond reproach? I can still have great admiration for their goals and ideals, which I do, and still question whether their methodologies are the best they can be. I'm sure those heavily vested in a specific kind of academic training will reflexively rail out at my questioning. They have every right to do so.

As great as it was, there were many shortcomings to the 19th Century academic training as well. I try to address those things, by not throwing the baby out with the bath water so I teach an evolved academic approach.

When I was teaching myself drawing and painting, after learning absolutely nothing in art college, I learned that the majority of artists almost always agreed on methods that neither panned out for me nor seemed logical. I learned to view everything that was the agreed upon "correct" way with great skepticism and I also learned to question everything. I have relied on my intuition and it has served both me and my students well. I explore all the possibilities and both my students and I battle-test my theories. Try it my way and see what you think or come study with me and see the difference.

[Mischa Milosevic]

Marvin, I think now, I better understand what you were trying to say in regard to the way the plates are to be used. I also believe to be true that Bargue wished to teach us the simple way to see complicated things.

The way the book was put together can be questioned and it should be questioned but we have the book. The plates are what count and I applaud the few that have took time to put this book together. When I was researching the art of the old master and their study and teaching methods I came to understand that Two books existed. I was ready to travel to France from the US in order to visit the last publisher. My name was amongst the first on the list for the edition that we hold so dear today. I payed $40 and it never leaves my site. I would not trade it for any book in the world except one but for that one I know the author personally.

As for your students I am sure that in you they have found a true teacher, friend and artist. People like you are like that rare book that one looks for and hopes to find. What I appreciate the most about you is that you fight to understand and fight to get to the truth. This is a rare quality in todays world. I find that many still think that we live in a dog eat dog world and it is sad when one hears that. As we all know there is a time for everything and the seed that we sow will be tested at harvest time.

My best to you and your students

[Ngaire Winwood]

Thanks Marvin for your inspiration.

The Bargue book is not understood easily to most student and professional alike as you have mentioned but more so for students that the book was intended for.

I envisage that after I master a high level of artistic skills at some unknown point in the future, I will look back on whether I was fortunate enough to gain its real value that I may or may not have grasped at that time of my training due possibly to the way it was designed and our conversation here on this forum. If this book is truly a gem that you speak of, please allow me to see a glimpse of what you see for the sake of my enthusiasm towards my own self training.

Any loss or lack or understanding does change the course of one's career as you have so pointed out. When then, is it's importance of the efficient use of this books plates, of the real value most needed to a student? In the beginning of their training as a portrait artist?

You speak highly of your program for those fortunate enough to study with you. I wander what assistance you are williing, if any, to offer those geographically and financially disadvantaged but who still need guidance into its valued structured lessons that you speak of.

I feel my procrastination to the exercises (although eager and enthusiastic at first instance could be the cause of the wain from not understanding their value) seem to stem from them being undervalued and misunderstood.

If you were given a chance to inspire a long distance student to understand the great value of the book (like myself) that you hold so dear, what encouragement or guidance would you be willing to offer students?

[Steven Sweeney]

Ngaire,

If I understand you, then I would say

[Steven Sweeney]

No, Marvin, thanks for the taunt, but I don't purchase and study other painters' instructional DVDs for laughs, nor out of contempt for them, nor to compare myself to those artists. They are all my superiors in the arts, by definition. I buy them only after I've seen the particular artists' work and have been so very taken by it that I wanted to know more about their methods. I buy them because I have more to learn, and I don't rely on one source for all of my information.

No studio or workshop teaches everything about all of it, but I can't get to all the workshops anyway. I'm not stuck in any genre, and a lot of different methods and materials handling and philosophies intrigue me. Yes, it's true, after training in the figure and portrait at an atelier, I could not paint landscapes as well as Jay Moore or Scott Christensen. Their professionalism and generosity in putting their teachings "out there" in DVD form permitted me the extreme pleasure of watching their work evolve from concept to finished masterpiece. By all accounts, their workshops are as full as ever. I certainly didn't just pop some corn and sit back and watch these masters for yucks. Nor do I hold my classical realist instructors at fault for not making sure I could paint like Moore or Christensen before I left.

And no, I don't know if the methodologies of the 19th century can be improved upon. I've been recently told that some 19th century materials, including painting substrates and pigment vehicles, couldn't be improved on, but I'm not sure that's gospel, either. I admit, it's harder and harder to know which shell the pea is under.

The suggestion that this Forum's moderators are deleting your posts, out of some kind of animosity or envy or whatever motivation is imagined, isn't true. You well know that. You have been given completely free rein since being reinstated after the low point in this Forum's history, years ago now. If any of your posts have been deleted, I suspect that it may have been a matter of authorial discretion after the fact. An audit record would clarify who did what, when, if the software here permits it.

That's enough of this thread for me. This last-artist-standing approach doesn't much feed the soul.

[Marvin Mattelson]

Steven, I believe that if one understands painting in a contextual way, switching from genre to genre is not problematic. Proper analysis of the subject matter is what puts you into the game. I would vehiminately disagree with your assumption that "No studio or workshop teaches everything about all of it." Not true for me! I know it sounds arrogant, if you take it literally, but what I teach is wholistic and profound. In Zenspeak, "If you know one thing you know everything." Eastern philosophy is formulated on applying the context of Yin and Yang to all modalities (medicine, astrology and martial arts for example) and my teaching is based on Yin and Yang.

Most people that teach, teach their specific technical approach, so as a result, you get a lot of students whose work is indistinguisable from the teachers, at best, or at least seems stylistically similar, usually with poorer drawing. It's the artistic version of the difference between serving a man a meal or teaching him to farm.

If one learns how to interpret the portrait and the figure on a two dimentional surface, where drawing is the most critical, moving to the still life or landscape should not problematic or require a different approach.

Here is an excerpt from a recent email sent to me by my former student Daisuke (Dice) Tsutsumi who, incidentally was just hired by Pixar.

And of course, I never forget that my painting/illustration skill really comes from your class. Wheather you see it or not, i do still use your theory in my work all the time. Especially now, I do a lot of lighting studies/lighting art directing for movies. You really taught me so much about lighting and picture making fundamentals.

Here are some of his plein air landscapes: http://www.simplestroke.com/wp/?page_id=17 Look at the sylistic characteristics of his work and tell me if you can see any hint of me in there.

When I alluded to the comedic aspect of watching DVD's or videos of other artists' approach I was humerously alluding to the vast number of products that seem less than cognisant to me. I didn't mean to imply that every such offering lacks merit. The good ones, in my opinion are few and far between.

Regarding the deletion issue, one of the board members proudly and publically stated on another forum, that all my posts had been reviewed and everything which that particular board member found offensive was deleted. You can draw your own conclusions.

Personally I believe that a healty debate over differing approaches serves a very functional purpose, to make people think. It is in the mind where great art is created. Challenging the beliefs of others, as I see it, is a positive, not a negative thing. As Joel Osteen said, "You will never change what you tolerate." If education is the objective here then debate should be encouraged. If I challenge your ideas it doesn't mean I'm attacking you as a person. That is where, if I were running this forum, I would draw the line. Unfortunately some people are quite chippy and can't see the difference. Sometimes being "off topic" is where the learning transpires.

Rote learning, in my opinion, is NOT a healthy way to learn. For myself, the WHY? aspect is just as necessary as the how. I have to own it. Learning and growth are also not necessarily supposed to be comfortable. Growing pains are part of equation, and I don't believe there can ever be too high a price to pay for true knowledge. We celebrate the pioneers who in the past dared to question the status quo in order to take things a step up, but we roll our eyes when someone, like me, challenges the status quo, as it effects us.

One last thing I would like to address while I still have the floor here, is that even though I do have strong opinions, I do respect the opinions of others, yet I still reserve the right to disagree with them. This is the right that our soldiers, who we are remembering this holiday weekend, sacrificed their lives for.

We are all but tiny little grains of sand, relative to the infinite vastness of the cosmos. To loose sight of that fact and believe our grain is better than any other, is what, in my humble opinion, defines arrogance, not asserting one's humble opinion.

[Julie Deane]

Years ago, I was a member of a group with identical opinions on most of our beliefs (not having to do with art, but I think the analogy holds). One member came in with very different opinions, and the arguments got heavy for a while. At one point, the arguer said, "Maybe I should leave". But another member spoke up and said, "We may not agree with you, but hearing your differences is valuable, because it forces us to examine our own beliefs more closely."