Cleveland Museum of Art

Compositional Study? (possibly for "Poussin’s Deluge") (verso)

Théodore Géricault

Date

c. 1816

Medium

brown wash and black crayon

Culture

France, 19th century

Department

Drawings

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Géricault's drawing of a man clutching the mane of a horse as they struggle together to stay afloat is a direct copy of a detail from one of Nicolas Poussin's (1594-1665) most celebrated paintings, The Deluge, or Winter (see photo). Small in scale but monumental in feeling, the sheet exemplifies the artist's "antique manner" of drawing, which he began to develop around 1815. This style, with its heavy contour lines and broad washes, developed in tandem with Géricault's renewed interest in copying works of art from the past, such as prints after ancient sculpture and works by Raphael (1483-1520), Michelangelo (1475-1564), and Poussin.

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