The Deluge

This is the first compositional sketch for a finished graphite drawing today preserved in Innsbruck. The final version of The Deluge belongs to a cycle of thirty-one Biblical illustrations, produced in two different periods of the artist’s career. Though the cycle began in 1805 as a private diversion or “evening entertainment”, as Koch recalled, it was later pursued as part of plans for an illustrated Bible, which was ultimately left unrealized.

Koch was a member of the Nazarene movement, a subset of nineteenth-century German Romanticism that sought to inspire piety through their depictions of Christian mythology. In this sketch, Koch draws inspiration from frescoes by the Italian masters Raphael (1483–1520) and Michelangelo (1475–1564) that also depicted the Great Flood.

This preparatory drawing represents Koch at his most impulsive—the artist’s usual squarely defined and sculptural draftsmanship is loosened in a moment of spontaneity and exuberance. As such, it offers great insight into the artistic process for this leading member of German Neo-Classicism.