The Music of Line - Harold Speed 12

Another Bargue Plate Copy

This post picks up again in my series on Harold Speed's book on drawing. Here I highlight some points from chapter 11 entitled, "Rhythm: Variety of Line." The entire series can be found on my favorites page.


"A line of equal thickness is a very dead and inexpressive thing compared with one varied and stressed at certain points." -- Harold Speed


In this chapter, Speed recommends varying your lines to give vitality or "life" to your drawings. I can attest to the truthfulness of this. Just today when I was working on a Bargue plate - when I changed the guide lines (straight lines of uniform thickness) into more weighted lines the drawing seemed to come to life. I had been unhappy with the drawing until that point - then suddenly I saw it was a better drawing than I had thought.


This sort of quality in a drawing is difficult to remember at times. I suppose it should be on a checklist when you evaluate your work. It reminds me of that statement of Robert Beverly Hale where he says becoming good requires "driving all the horses at once." Varied lines are just one of the horses that pull the coach along. Just the other day I was getting lost in a piece and thought to myself - the horses have all broken loose and are trampling the drawing. Knowing the elements of a good drawing is one thing, being able to control and implement them in any one drawing is quite another.


"It is impossible to write of the infinite qualities of variety that a fine draughtsman will get into his line work; they must be studied at first hand. But on this play of thickness and quality of line much of the vitality of your drawing will depend." -- Harold Speed


Speed is channeling Yoda there in that last sentence... :-)

Exercising the Eye and Hand

Not too long ago I ordered the famous Bargue Drawing Course. It was popular in its day (late 1860s) and it's famous now because people like Van Gogh and Picasso did it. Vincent apparently did it twice - you can search his letters and find references to it.

I've enjoyed the opportunity to get some basic drawing skill practice in. Another couple "simple" plates like the ones above - line drawings - and then we move on to more modelling!

Lifeless Piece of Perfect Workmanship: Harold Speed 7

Bargue Drawing Course, my beginning

This post contains highlights from chapter 6, of Harold Speed's book on drawing. The chapter is called "The Academic and Conventional". You can find all posts from this series on my favorites page.

"academic drawing is all that can be really taught, and is as necessary to the painter as the practicing of exercises is to the musician, that his powers of observation and execution may be trained."

-- Harold Speed

In this chapter Speed argues that academic drawing (studying how to draw well) is necessary. He argues that academic studies train the eye to observe accurately and train the hand to reproduce appearance.

"But the vital matter of art is not in all this necessary training." -- Harold Speed

So when is a drawing good?

"The test is whether it has life and conveys genuine feeling." -- Speed

Why is not a drawing's accuracy a measure of goodness?

"It would seem that, after a certain point, the nearer your picture approaches the actual illusion of natural appearance, the further you are from the expression of life...The nearer you approach the actual in all its completeness, the more evident is the lack of that movement which always accompanies life."

-- Harold Speed

Finally, with those necessary exercises mentioned above in mind, I have begun working my way through the famous Bargue Drawing Course. You see my first drawings above.