Fright

Description

On a formative trip to Rome, John Downman drew copiously after the antique. For these two studies of human emotion, he likely used prints by Jean Audran after Charles Le Brun to illustrate his publication Expressions of the Passions of the Soul (from 1727, or later editions). While fright was part of Le Brun’s famous lecture on the topic of reproducing the emotions, he did not mention attention, and neither one appears in the nearby Encyclopédie pages.

Fright

John Downman

n.d.

Accession Number

109135

Medium

Charcoal with stumping and traces of brush and black wash on cream laid paper

Dimensions

38.1 × 27.5 cm (15 × 10 7/8 in.)

Classification

chalk

Museum

The Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, United States

Credit Line

The Leonora Hall Gurley Memorial Collection