The Creation of the Heavens

Although John Flaxman’s reputation is as an artist who took his inspiration from the ancient world, he argued in his lectures at the Royal Academy in London that “there are more suitable artistic subjects to be found in the Old and New Testaments than in pagan mythology.” In this dramatic drawing, the aggregate mass of God and his angels flies upward, cutting a diagonal swath across the darkened paper. Sidestepping the problem of representing the Creator’s visage, Flaxman depicts God and the angels from behind, their forms simplified into a few strokes of watercolor.