Modern Application of Lecoq de Boisbaudran's Drawing Method

A main characteristic of Lecoq's drawing approach is the emphasis on greater accuracy by breaking curves into segments. This allows greater control over the structure and a stronger drawing than curved lines would allow. It enables artists to find errors because they can pinpoint which line is off; with curves, it is hard to identify exactly where the drawing has gone wrong.

This characteristic of segmented curves can be seen in the work of the best drawers throughout the centuries, including Millet, Van Gogh, Degas, Cassatt, Augustus John, Cecilia Beaux, Whistler, Manet, Fantin-Latour, and others. Many of these artists were his students or used his methods. Rodin said he received the best training of his life when he attended Lecoq's school at age 17.

Lecoq's approach is very clear and succinct compared with other instruction on drawing. This professor goes right to the point of what an artist should concentrate on. His first exercises are excellent for preparing the basic skills needed for good drawing — and they help students avoid the less important aspects of the subject. These first exercises were passed on in letters he wrote to Alphonse Legros, who taught Lecoq's approach at the Slade School. The Slade School produced some very talented teenagers in the late 19th century using Lecoq's methods, including Wilson Steer, Augustus John, and Gwen John.

I have used these exercises extensively in my own teaching and can attest to how well they work in teaching people — including children — how to draw. After conscientious practice using his first lessons, students I have taught have noticeably improved their drawing skills and have become very adept at finding the lines in their subjects, tracing the line segments of curves, and looking more carefully at their subject.

I believe that learning to draw well using these principles is essential to developing the memory, and memory is a valuable asset that should be honed in conjunction with learning to draw.

My colleague Joan Irey and I use memory-drawing exercises in conjunction with Lecoq's basic exercises, five principles, and main advice on learning to draw. After the children have drawn a subject to the point where they think they are finished, we have them turn their backs on the subject and draw it from memory. After these attempts at memory drawing, we tell them, as Lecoq advises, that if parts of the subject are hard to remember, then those are the areas they need to observe more carefully.

I find this basic memory exercise helps the students take a better look at their subject — they are more likely to focus on the bigger build of the subject rather than superfluous details. I often quote one of Hahn's teachers from the Royal Academy, Edna Clark Hall, who said, "If you have drawn your subject well, you should have no trouble drawing it from memory."

I have found that using the memory practice this way helps the artist distill and choose the most important lines from the lesser parts of the subject. Since drawing involves distilling the essential lines from the subject, memory practice helps the student focus on the few important lines and the main points to watch. The more succinct the drawing, the easier it is to remember. They go hand in hand.

Drawing is actually an act of memory. An important point Lecoq makes is that the artist in the action of drawing looks at the subject and retains it in memory before drawing it on paper. The time away from the subject simply can be lengthened. Beginner students in Lecoq's classes turned their backs on the subject or drew it an hour later. More advanced students went to the upper floors of the school to draw a subject after viewing it for shorter periods. The most advanced students were away from the subject as long as a week and viewed the subjects for only an hour or less before reproducing them from memory. Sometimes this was done in a museum — they viewed a painting and drew it again later.