This nice little Lithograph of a male nude by Bernard-Romain Julien (1802-1871) arrived in the mail today. I had to do some research to divulge the true authorship of this lithograph. At first I mistakenly thought the drawing was done by Rodolphe Julian (1839-1907) and used as part of the drawing study course at the Atelier Julian. I discovered, after pulling down a wonderful reference source: Charles Bargue - Drawing Course by Gerald M. Ackerman (ISBN 2-86770-166-X), that Bernard-Romain Julien actually had published his own drawing course around 1860. It was designed for use in public schools in France, a fact that it proudly declared on the title page. Julien's course actually parallels the more famous Bargue-Gerome course by beginning with details of the face and proceeding to full views of antique statuary. Julien's plates are in a refined, linear, Neoclassical style. I discovered another blog about drawing that gave a brief history of Julien, which I will quote here: "Julien was a prominent French Lithographer and printer from Bayonne, France. He illustrated a Cours de Dessin which was used extensively to teach principles of drawing in the mid-19th century. His cours preceded that of Gerome and Bargue, and represents the height of achievement in sculptural rendering in lithography, just before the advent of photography led artists towards camera-conditioned rendering. His hatch marks echo the tool marks of Michelangelo, translating planar surfaces into sensitive passages of tone. These plates were intended to be copied by students, proceeding from mise-en-traits, to a linear contour, to tonal rendering. Julien was a student of Antoine-Jean Gros (1771-1835), who studied with Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825). Through this lineage, julien is connected back to Louis Boullogne the Elder (1609-1674), one of the original founding members of the Academe royal de peinture et de sculpture in Paris in 1648. Julien's lithographs were printed in France and England by multiple printers and enjoyed a wide circulation."
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Caption: Male Nude, Cours Elementaire, Lith. par JuilenArtist: Bernard-Romain Julien (1802-1871)
Medium: Lithograph on paper
Dated: Undated ..circa 1860
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