Gray ink and gray wash on medium, slightly textured, cream wove paper
Dimensions:
Sheet: 9 1/8 × 10 inches (23.2 × 25.4 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1981.25.2586
Gallery Label:
Although John Flaxman’s reputation is as an artist who took his inspiration from the ancient world, he argued in his lectures at the Royal Academy in London that “there are more suitable artistic subjects to be found in the Old and New Testaments than in pagan mythology.” In this dramatic drawing, the aggregate mass of God and his angels flies upward, cutting a diagonal swath across the darkened paper. Sidestepping the problem of representing the Creator’s visage, Flaxman depicts God and the angels from behind, their forms simplified into a few strokes of watercolor. Gallery label for the Critique of Reason: Romantic Art (Yale Center for British Art, 2015-03-06 - 2015-07-26)
