The Deluge
Original title: The Deluge
kurzbeschreibung
People climb onto rocks and trees to escape the rising waters: Battista Franco takes up the biblical Flood around 1550–60. The engraving compresses the flight into a dense throng of bodies, treating a subject that was ubiquitous in the art of those years.
Description
In the foreground, figures crowd onto narrow ledges and into treetops, some barefoot, others wrapped in simple garments, while still others are already caught in frantic movement. Above them looms a great ship, to which the survivors pin their last hopes. Heavy clouds and a broken, restless light settle over the image; the twisted postures of the figures carry the sense of distress further. Stretched wide, the layout follows the expanse of the water.
Context
The sheet was made in mid-sixteenth-century Italy, when biblical narratives widely shaped the repertoire of art. Battista Franco, a painter and printmaker, trained on Roman antiquity and on Michelangelo. The engraving belongs to a series of works that take up themes from the Old Testament.
Impact
An oppressive tension lies over the sheet and makes the people's helplessness palpable. Delicately drawn lines and a stark light-dark contrast bring the fleeing figures into focus, while the threatening force of nature remains present as a constant antagonist.
Technique
As an engraving, the print works with thin lines and hatching that model surfaces and shadows. Figures and background alike are sharply defined, and the incised strokes carry the movement of the event.
AI-generated description text
Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art · Public Domain (CC0 1.0)