Fright
n.d.
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
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
109135
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
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.
About the Artist
John Downman · 1750–1824
John Downman (1750–1824) was born in Ruabon, near Wrexham, in North Wales. His artistic inclinations proved stronger than any legal ambitions his family held for him, and he began his formal training in Liverpool before enrolling in 1769 among the first intake of students at the newly established Royal Academy Schools in London. There he studied under Benjamin West. In 1773, Downman deepened his e...