1791
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Paris and Oenone is a 1791 by John Flaxman, a Romanticism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see two figures in a rocky landscape: a man in armor pointing toward a city, and a woman sitting on a rock with her head in her hands. Flaxman drew this scene from an old Greek myth—Paris leaving his lover Oenone to judge a beauty contest. The lines are clean and simple, almost like a comic strip. He made it in Rome to sell as a finished drawing, not just a sketch. Look up other works by John Flaxman (British, 1755–1826) to see more of his spare, storybook style.
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,…
John Flaxman called his drawings "outlines," referring to their sparse style.
Read the full account in the museum source.
John Flaxman (6 July 1755 – 7 December 1826) was an English sculptor and draughtsman who was a leading figure in British and European Neoclassicism.
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