ford madox brown - eTheses Repository - University of Birmingham

Brown’s interest in another contemporary of Fuseli's is evident in the style of his
drawings of the angelic host. These brown pen and ink drawings are highly
reminiscent of those in the same medium by the artist and sculptor John Flaxman
(1755-1826). Newman and Watkinson do mention the drawings at the BMAG briefly
and note that ‘some Flaxmanesque pen-and-ink studies of angels survive, linking the
picture with Lear drawings of the same year and showing Ford’s [sic] familiarity with
English Art.’ 96 Taking this comment further, Brown’s drawings (cat. nos. 5-7) seem
to be particularly linked to Flaxman’s outlines for the Iliad and the Odyssey (both pub.
1793) which were engraved by Tommaso Piroli (1754-1824). 97 Flaxman’s
illustrations made him famous throughout Europe and Brown would certainly have
known them. These illustrations are filled with classically beautiful figures; in
particular muscular, naked men almost identical, in style and type, to the two angels in
cat. no. 6 and on the reverse of cat. no. 7. Like the men found in Sleep escaping from
the Wrath of Jupiter from Iliad (Fig. 53) these two angels, with wild hair, are depicted
clutching onto to one another. In fact, they are typical of the groups of flying gods
and goddesses found throughout Flaxman’s outlines. It is not just the type of figures
Brown has taken from Flaxman. In these preliminary sketches it is also the style and
medium which suggest Brown's interest in Flaxman. Brown has copied Flaxman’s
style using only outlines and no shading or background for spatial reference. 98
Flaxman and others in the circle around Fuseli all seem to have favoured brown ink
especially around the time many of them were studying together in Rome. It is to
works made at this time by Fuseli, Flaxman and their contemporaries, James Barry
(1741-1806), Angelica Kauffman (1741-1807) and Joseph Wright of Derby (1734-
96 Op. cit. at note 5, p. 19. This point is not explored further by Newman and Watkinson.
97 Flaxman also created outlines for Dante (pub. 1793) and Aeschylus (pub. 1795).
98 Although Flaxman does use shading it is minimal and linear.
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