Cleveland Museum of Art

Paris and Oenone

John Flaxman

Date

1791

Medium

brush and gray wash with pen and pale gray-black ink with graphite and brown ink

Culture

England, 18th century

Department

Drawings

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Although he identified himself first and foremost as a sculptor, John Flaxman’s greatest fame and most lasting influence rest with his drawings. Engravings made after his spare designs illustrating classical epics by Homer, Dante, and Hesiod became the most celebrated work in his oeuvre and spread his stylized linearity widely. This highly finished, signed and dated drawing was made while Flaxman was in Rome and needed to supplement his income while trying to obtain commissions for sculpture. Flaxman chose an obscure classical subject: the famous Trojan shepherd, Paris, with his first love, the nymph Oenone. The scene takes place on Mount Ida, in an idyllic time of peace before Paris was called upon to judge the beauty of the goddesses Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite, thus instigating the Trojan War. John Flaxman called his drawings "outlines," referring to their sparse style.

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